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WITH  THE  FRENCH 
IN  FRANCE  AND   SALONIKA 


General  Sarrail,  commanding  the  Allied  armies  in  Greece, 
making  his  first  landing  in  Salonika. 


IN   FRANCE  AND 
SALONIKA 


BY 

RICHARD  HARDING  DAVIS 

AUTHOR    OF    "  WITH    THE    AIJAR8 " 


ILLUSTRATED 


COPYRIGHT,  1916,  BY 
CHARLES  SCBIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  April.  1916 


TO  THE  MEMORY 

OP 
JUSTUS  MILES  FORMAN 


PREFACE 

THIS  book  was  written  during  the  three 
last  months  of  1915  and  the  first  month  of 
this  year  in  the  form  of  letters  from  France, 
Greece,  Serbia,  and  England.  The  writer 
visited  ten  of  the  twelve  sectors  of  the 
French  front,  seeing  most  of  them  from  the 
first  trench,  and  was  also  on  the  French- 
British  front  in  the  Balkans.  Outside  of 
Paris  the  French  cities  visited  were  Verdun, 
Amiens,  St.  Die,  Arras,  Chalons,  Nancy,  and 
Rheims.  What  he  saw  served  to  strengthen 
his  admiration  for  the  French  army  and,  as 
individuals  and  as  a  nation,  for  the  French 
people,  and  to  increase  his  confidence  in  the 
ultimate  success  of  their  arms. 

This  success  he  believes  would  come  sooner 
were  all  the  fighting  concentrated  in  Europe. 
To  scatter  the  forces  of  the  Allies  in  expedi- 

vii 


PREFACE 

tions  overseas,  he  submits,  only  weakens  the 
main  attack  and  the  final  victory.  At  the 
present  moment,  outside  of  her  armies  for 
defense  in  England  and  for  offense  in  Flan- 
ders, Great  Britain  is  supporting  armies  in 
Egypt,  German  East  Africa,  Salonika,  and 
Mesopotamia.  No  one  who  has  seen  in 
actual  being  one  of  these  vast  expeditions, 
any  one  of  which  in  the  past  would  have 
commanded  the  interest  of  the  entire  world, 
can  appreciate  how  seriously  they  cripple 
the  main  offensive.  Each  robs  it  of  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  men  needed  in  the  trenches, 
of  the  transports  required  to  carry  those 
men,  of  war-ships  to  convoy  them,  of  hospital 
ships  to  mend  them,  of  medical  men,  medical 
stores,  aeroplanes,  motor-trucks,  ambulances, 
machine-guns,  field-guns,  siege-guns,  and  mil- 
lions upon  millions  of  rounds  of  ammuni- 
tion. 

Transports  that  from  neutral  ports  should 
be  carrying  bully  beef,  grain,  and  munitions, 
are  lying  idle  at  a  rent  per  day  of  many  hun- 

viii 


PREFACE 

dreds  of  thousands  of  pounds,  in  the  harbors 
of  Moudros,  Salonika,  Aden,  Alexandria,  in 
the  Persian  Gulf,  and  scattered  along  both 
coasts  of  Africa.  They  are  guarded  by  war- 
ships withdrawn  from  duty  in  the  Channel 
and  North  Sea.  What,  in  lives  lost,  these 
expeditions  have  cost  both  France  and  Great 
Britain,  we  know;  what  they  have  cost  in 
millions  of  money,  it  would  be  impossible 
even  to  guess. 

For  these  excursions  far  afield  it  is  not 
the  military  who  are  responsible.  There  is 
the  highest  authority  for  believing  neither 
General  Joffre  nor  Lord  Kitchener  approves 
of  them.  They  are  efforts  launched  for 
political  effect  by  loyal  and  well-meaning, 
but  possibly  mistaken,  members  of  the  two 
governments.  By  them  these  expeditions 
were  sent  forth  to  seize  some  place  in  the 
sun  already  held  by  Germany,  to  prevent 
other  places  falling  into  her  hands,  or  in  the 
hope  of  turning  some  neutral  power  into  an 
ally.  It  was  merely  dancing  to  Germany's 

ix 


PREFACE 

music.  It  postponed  and  weakened  the 
main  attack.  This  war  should  be  fought 
in  France.  If  it  is,  Germany  will  be  utterly 
defeated;  she  cannot  long  survive  such  an- 
other failure  as  Verdun,  or  even  should  she 
eventually  occupy  Verdun  could  she  survive 
such  a  victory.  When  she  no  longer  is  a 
military  threat  all  she  possessed  before  the 
war,  and  whatever  territory  she  has  taken 
since  she  began  the  war,  will  automatically 
revert  to  the  Allies.  It  then  will  be  time 
enough  to  restore  to  Belgium,  Serbia,  Poland, 
and  other  rightful  owners  the  possessions  of 
which  Germany  has  robbed,  them.  If  you 
surprise  a  burglar,  his  pockets  stuffed  with 
the  family  jewels,  would  you  first  attempt  to 
recover  the  jewels,  or  to  subdue  the  burglar? 
Before  retrieving  your  possessions  would  it 
not  be  better  strategy  to  wait  until  the 
burglar  is  down  and  out,  and  the  police  are 
adjusting  the  handcuffs? 

In  the  first  chapter  of  this  book  is  re- 
printed a  letter  I  wrote  from  Paris  to  the 


PREFACE 

papers  of  the  Wheeler  Syndicate,  stating 
that  in  no  part  of  Europe  was  our  country 
popular.  It  was  a  hint  given  from  one 
American  speaking  in  confidence  to  another, 
and  as  from  one  friend  to  another.  It  was 
not  so  received.  To  my  suggestion  that  in 
Europe  we  are  losing  friends,  the  answer  in- 
variably was:  "We  should  worry!"  That 
is  not  a  good  answer.  With  a  nation  it 
surely  should  be  as  with  the  individuals  who 
compose  it.  If,  when  an  individual  is  told 
he  has  lost  the  good  opinion  of  his  friends, 
he  sings,  "I  don't  care,  I  don't  care!"  he 
exhibits  only  bad  manners. 

The  other  reply  made  to  the  warning  was 
personal  abuse.  That  also  is  the  wrong 
answer.  To  kill  the  messenger  of  ill  tidings 
is  an  ancient  prerogative;  but  it  leads  no- 
where. If  it  is  true  that  we  are  losing  our 
friends  we  should  try  to  find  out  whose 
fault  it  is  that  we  lost  them,  and  our  wish 
should  be  to  bring  our  friends  back. 

Men  of  different  countries  of  Europe  re- 

xi 


PREFACE 

peatedly  told  me  that  all  of  a  century  must 
elapse  before  America  can  recover  the  pres- 
tige she  has  lost  since  this  war  began.  My 
answer  was  that  it  was  unintelligent  to  judge 
ninety  million  people  by  the  acts,  or  lack  of 
action,  of  one  man,  and  that  to  recover  our 
lost  prestige  will  take  us  no  longer  than  is  re- 
quired to  get  rid  of  that  man.  As  soon  as  we 
elect  a  new  President  and  a  new  Congress, 
who  are  not  necessarily  looking  for  trouble, 
but  who  will  not  crawl  under  the  bed  to 
avoid  it,  our  lost  prestige  will  return. 

In  the  meantime,  that  France  and  her 
Allies  succeed  should  be  the  hope  and  prayer 
of  every  American.  The  fight  they  are  wag- 
ing is  for  the  things  the  real,  unhyphen- 
ated American  is  supposed  to  hold  most  high 
and  most  dear.  Incidentally,  they  are  fight- 
ing his  fight,  for  their  success  will  later  save 
him,  unprepared  as  he  is  to  defend  himself, 
from  a  humiliating  and  terrible  thrashing. 
And  every  word  and  act  of  his  now  that 
helps  the  Allies  is  a  blow  against  frightful- 

ftfi 


PREFACE 

ness,  against  despotism,  and  in  behalf  of  a 
broader  civilization,  a  nobler  freedom,  and 
a  much  more  pleasant  world  in  which  to 

live. 

RICHARD  HARDING  DAVIS. 

April  n,  1916. 


XUl 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  PRESIDENT  POINCARE  THANKS  AMERICA  ...  3 

II.  THE  MUD  TRENCHES  OF  ARTOIS 35 

III.  THE  ZIGZAG  FRONT  OF  CHAMPAGNE 55 

IV.  FROM  PARIS  TO  THE  PIRJEUS 79 

V.  WHY  KING  CONST ANTINE  Is  NEUTRAL     ...  97 

VI.  WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA in 

VII.  Two  BOYS  AGAINST  AN  ARMY 152 

VIII.  THE  FRENCH-BRITISH  FRONT  IN  SERBIA  ...  165 

IX.  VERDUN  AND  ST.  MIHIEL 188 

X.  WAR  IN  THE  VOSGES 210 

XI.  HINTS  FOR  THOSE  WHO  WANT  TO  HELP    .   .  223 

XII.  LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 245 


xv 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

General  Sarrail,  commanding  the  Allied  armies  in 
Greece,  making  his  first  landing  in  Salonika 

Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGE 

President  Poincar6  on  a  visit  to  the  front 18 

"Of  another  house  the  roof  only  remained,  from  under 

it  the  rest  of  the  building  had  been  shot  away"  .    .       48 

The  stone  roof  over  this  glass  chandelier  in  the  Arras 
cathedral  was  destroyed  by  shells,  and  the  chan- 
delier not  touched 50 

General  Franchet  d'Esp6ray 70 

King  Constantine  of  Greece  and  commander-in-chief  of 

her  armies      102 

"In  Salonika  the  water-front  belongs  to  everybody"  .     122 

"On  one  side  of  the  quay,  a  moving-picture  palace, 

.  .  .  on  the  other  a  boat  unloading  fish" 124 

Outside  the  Citadel,  which  is  mediaeval,  Salonika  is 

modern  and  Turkish .     126 

"The  quay  supplied  every  spy — German,  Bulgarian, 

Turk,  or  Austrian — with  an  uninterrupted  view"     138 

"Hills  bare  of  trees,  from  which  the  snow  that  ran 
down  their  slopes  had  turned  the  road  into  a  sea 

of  mud" 154 

xvii 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING  PAGE 

American  war  correspondents  at  the  French  front  in 

Serbia 160 

Headquarters  of  the  French  commander  in  Grevac, 

Serbia 172 

After  the  retreat  from  Serbia 176 

The  ruined  village  of  Gerbeviller,  destroyed  after  their 

retreat  by  the  Germans 190 

"  Through  these  woods  ran  a  toy  railroad  " 192 

A  first-line  trench  outside  of  Verdun 200 

A  valley  in  Argonne  showing  a  forest  destroyed  by 

shells 208 

War  in  the  forest 216 

A  poster  inviting  the  proprietors  of  restaurants  and 
hotels  and  their  guests  to  welcome  the  soldiers  who 
have  permission  to  visit  Paris,  especially  those 
who  come  from  the  districts  invaded  by  the  Ger- 
mans   228 

All  over  France,  on  Christmas  Day  and  the  day  after, 
money  was  collected  to  send  comforts  and  things 
good  to  eat  to  the  men  at  the  front 232 

A  poster  advertising  the  fund  to  bring  from  the  trenches 
"permissionaires,"  those  soldiers  who  obtain  per- 
mission to  return  home  for  six  days 236 

"Very  interestin'.    You  ought  to  frame  it " 252 

"They  have  women  policemen  now" 262 


xvui 


WITH  THE  FRENCH 
IN  FRANCE  AND  SALONIKA 


CHAPTER  I 

PRESIDENT  POINCARE  THANKS 
AMERICA 

PARIS,  October,  1915. 

WHILE  still  six  hundred  miles  from  the 
French  coast  the  passengers  on  the 
Chicago  of  the  French   line   entered   what 
was  supposed  to  be  the  war  zone. 

In  those  same  waters,  just  as  though  the 
reputation  of  the  Bay  of  Biscay  was  not  suf- 
ficiently scandalous,  two  ships  of  the  line 
had  been  torpedoed. 

So,  in  preparation  for  what  the  captain 
tactfully  called  an  "accident,"  we  rehearsed 
abandoning  ship. 

It  was  like  the  fire-drills  in  our  public 
schools.  It  seemed  a  most  sensible  precau- 
tion, and  one  that  in  times  of  peace,  as  well 
as  of  war,  might  with  advantage  be  enforced 
on  all  passenger-ships. 

3 


PRESIDENT  POINCARfc 

In  his  proclamation  Commandant  Mace 
of  the  Chicago  borrowed  an  idea  from  the 
New  York  Fire  Department.  It  was  the 
warning  Commissioner  Adamson  prints  on 
theatre  programmes,  and  which  casts  a  gloom 
over  patrons  of  the  drama  by  instructing 
them  to  look  for  the  nearest  fire-escape. 

Each  passenger  on  the  Chicago  was  as- 
signed to  a  life-boat.  He  was  advised  to  find 
out  how  from  any  part  of  the  ship  at  which 
he  might  be  caught  he  could  soonest  reach  it. 

Women  and  children  were  to  assemble  on 
the  boat  deck  by  the  boat  to  which  they  were 
assigned.  After  they  had  been  lowered  to 
the  water,  the  men  —  who,  meanwhile,  were 
to  be  segregated  on  the  deck  below  them  — 
would  descend  by  rope  ladders. 

Entrance  to  a  boat  was  by  ticket  only. 
The  tickets  were  six  inches  square  and  bore 
a  number.  If  you  lost  your  ticket  you  lost 
your  life.  Each  of  the  more  imaginative 
passengers  insured  his  life  by  fastening  the 
ticket  to  his  clothes  with  a  safety-pin. 

4 


THANKS  AMERICA 

Two  days  from  land  there  was  a  full-dress 
rehearsal,  and  for  the  first  time  we  met  those 
with  whom  we  were  expected  to  put  to  sea 
in  an  open  boat. 

Apparently  those  in  each  boat  were  se- 
lected by  lot.  As  one  young  doctor  in  the 
ambulance  service  put  it:  "The  society  in 
my  boat  is  not  at  all  congenial." 

The  only  other  persons  originally  in  my 
boat  were  Red  Cross  nurses  of  the  Post  unit 
and  infants.  In  trampling  upon  them  to 
safety  I  foresaw  no  difficulty. 

But  at  the  dress  rehearsal  the  purser 
added  six  dark  and  dangerous-looking  Span- 
iards. It  developed  later  that  by  profession 
they  were  bull-fighters.  Any  man  who  is 
not  afraid  of  a  bull  is  entitled  to  respect. 
But  being  cast  adrift  with  six  did  not  ap- 
peal. 

One  could  not  help  wondering  what  would 
happen  if  we  ran  out  of  provisions  and  the 
bull-fighters  grew  hungry.  I  tore  up  my 
ticket  and  planned  to  swim. 

5 


PRESIDENT  POINCARfc 

Some  of  the  passengers  took  the  rehearsal 
to  heart,  and,  all  night,  fully  dressed,  espe- 
cially as  to  boots,  tramped  the  deck.  As  the 
promenade-deck  is  directly  over  the  cabins, 
not  only  they  did  not  sleep  but  neither  did 
any  one  else. 

The  next  day  they  began  to  see  periscopes. 
For  this  they  were  not  greatly  to  be  blamed. 
The  sea  approach  to  Bordeaux  is  flagged 
with  black  buoys  supporting  iron  masts  that 
support  the  lights,  and  in  the  rain  and  fog 
they  look  very  much  like  periscopes. 

But  after  the  passengers  had  been  thrilled 
by  the  sight  of  twenty  of  them,  they  became 
so  bored  with  false  alarms  that  had  a  real 
submarine  appeared  they  were  in  a  mood  to 
invite  the  captain  on  board  and  give  him  a 
drink. 

While  we  still  were  anxiously  keeping 
watch,  a  sail  appeared  upon  the  horizon. 
Even  the  strongest  glasses  could  make  noth- 
ing of  it.  A  young,  very  young  Frenchman 
ran  to  the  bridge  and  called  to  the  officers: 

6 


THANKS  AMERICA 

"Gentlemen,  will  you  please  tell  me  what 
boat  it  is  that  I  see?" 

Had  he  asked  the  same  question  of  an 
American  captain  while  that  officer  was  on 
the  bridge,  the  captain  would  have  turned 
his  back.  An  English  captain  would  have 
put  him  in  irons. 

But  the  French  captain  called  down  to 
him:  "She  is  pilot-boat  No.  28.  The  pilot's 
name  is  Jean  Baptiste.  He  has  a  wife  and 
four  children  in  Bordeaux,  and  others  in 
Brest  and  Havre.  He  is  fifty  years  old  and 
has  a  red  nose  an.d  a  wart  on  his  chin.  Is 
there  anything  else  you  would  like  to  know?" 

At  daybreak,  as  the  ship  swept  up  the 
Gironde  to  Bordeaux,  we  had  our  first  view 
of  the  enemy. 

We  had  passed  the  vineyards  and  those 
chateaux  the  names  of  which  every  wine- 
card  in  every  part  of  the  world  helps  to  keep 
famous  and  familiar,  and  had  reached  the 
outskirts  of  the  city.  Here  the  banks  are 
close  together,  so  close  that  one  almost  can 

7 


PRESIDENT  POINCARl 

hail  those  on  shore;  but  there  was  a  heavy 
rain  and  the  mist  played  tricks. 

When  I  saw  a  man  in  a  black  overcoat 
with  the  brass  buttons  wider  apart  across 
the  chest  than  at  the  belt  line,  like  those  of 
our  traffic  police  in  summer-time,  I  thought 
it  was  a  trick  of  the  mist.  Because  the  uni- 
form that,  by  a  nice  adjustment  of  buttons, 
tries  to  broaden  the  shoulders  and  decrease 
the  waist,  is  not  being  worn  much  in  France. 
Not  if  a  French  sharpshooter  sees  it  first. 

But  the  man  in  the  overcoat  was  not 
carrying  a  rifle  on  his  shoulder.  He  was 
carrying  a  bag  of  cement,  and  from  the  hull 
of  the  barge  others  appeared,  each  with  a 
bag  upon  his  shoulder.  There  was  no  mis- 
taking them.  Nor  their  little  round  caps, 
high  boots,  and  field  uniforms  of  gray-green. 

It  was  strange  that  the  first  persons  we 
should  see  since  we  left  the  wharf  at  the  foot 
of  Fifteenth  Street,  North  River,  the  first  we 
should  see  in  France,  should  not  be  French 
people,  but  German  soldiers. 

8 


THANKS  AMERICA 

Bordeaux  had  the  good  taste  to  burn  down 
when  the  architect  who  designed  the  Place 
de  la  Concorde,  in  Paris,  and  the  buildings  * 
facing  it  was  still  alive;  and  after  his  designs, 
or  those  of  his  pupils,  Bordeaux  was  rebuilt. 
So  wherever  you  look  you  see  the  best  in 
what  is  old  and  the  smartest  in  what  is 
modern. 

Certainly  when  to  that  city  President  Poin- 
care  and  his  cabinet  moved  the  government, 
they  gave  it  a  resting-place  that  was  both 
dignified  and  charming.  To  walk  the  streets 
and  wharfs  is  a  continual  delight.  One  is 
never  bored.  It  is  like  reading  a  book  in 
which  there  are  no  dull  pages. 

Everywhere  are  the  splendid  buildings  of 
Louis  XV,  statues,  parks,  monuments, 
churches,  great  arches  that  once  were  the 
outer  gates,  and  many  miles  of  quays  redo- 
lent, not  of  the  sea,  but  of  the  wine  to  which 
the  city  gives  her  name. 

But  to-day  to  walk  the  streets  of  Bordeaux 
saddens  as  well  as  delights.  There  are  so 

9 


PRESIDENT  POINCARfc 

many  wounded.  There  are  so  many  women 
and  children  all  in  black.  It  is  a  relief  when 
you  learn  that  the  wounded  are  from  differ- 
ent parts  of  France,  that  they  have  been  sent 
to  Bordeaux  to  recuperate  and  are  greatly 
in  excess  of  the  proportion  of  wounded  you 
would  find  in  other  cities. 

But  the  women  and  children  in  black  are 
not  convalescents.  Their  wounds  heal  slowly, 
or  not  at  all. 

At  the  wharfs  a  white  ship  with  gigantic 
American  flags  painted  on  her  sides  and  with 
an  American  flag  at  the  stern  was  unloading 
horses.  They  were  for  the  French  artillery 
and  cavalry,  but  they  were  so  glad  to  be  free 
of  the  ship  that  their  future  state  did  not 
distress  them. 

Instead,  they  kicked  joyously,  scattering 
the  sentries,  who  were  jet-black  Turcos.  As 
one  of  them  would  run  from  a  plunging 
horse,  the  others  laughed  at  him  with  that 
contagious  laugh  of  the  darky  that  is  the 
same  all  the  world  over,  whether  he  hails 

10 


THANKS  AMERICA 

from  Mobile  or  Tangiers,  and  he  would  re- 
turn sheepishly,  with  eyes  rolling,  protesting 
the  horse  was  a  "boche." 

Officers,  who  looked  as  though  in  times  of 
peace  they  might  be  gentlemen  jockeys,  were 
receiving  the  remounts  and  identifying  the 
brands  on  the  hoof  and  shoulder  that  had 
been  made  by  their  agents  in  America. 

If  the  veterinary  passed  the  horse,  he  was 
again  marked,  this  time  with  regimental 
numbers,  on  the  hoof  with  a  branding-iron, 
and  on  the  flanks  with  white  paint.  In  ten 
days  he  will  be  given  a  set  of  shoes,  and  in  a 
month  he  will  be  under  fire. 

Colonel  Count  Rene  de  Montjou,  who  has 
been  a  year  in  America  buying  remounts, 
and  who  returned  on  the  Chicago,  discovered 
that  one  of  the  horses  was  a  "substitut," 
and  a  very  bad  "substitut"  he  was.  His 
teeth  had  been  filed,  but  the  French  officers 
saw  that  he  was  all  of  eighteen  years  old. 

The  young  American  who,  in  the  interests 
of  the  contractor,  was  checking  off  the  horses, 

ii 


PRESIDENT  POINCARfc 

refused  to  be  shocked.  Out  of  the  corner  of 
his  thin  lips  he  whispered  confidentially: 

"Suppose  he  is  a  ringer,"  he  protested; 
"suppose  he  is  eighteen  years  old,  what's  the 
use  of  their  making  a  holler  ?  What's  it  mat- 
ter how  old  he  is,  if  all  they're  going  to  do 
with  him  is  to  get  him  shot?" 

That  night  at  the  station,  as  we  waited 
for  the  express  to  Paris,  many  recruits  were 
starting  for  the  front.  There  seemed  to  be 
thousands  of  them,  all  new;  new  sky-blue  uni- 
forms, new  soup-tureen  helmets,  new  shoes. 

They  were  splendidly  young  and  vigorous 
looking,  and  to  the  tale  that  France  now  is 
forced  to  call  out  only  old  men  and  boys  they 
gave  the  lie.  With  many  of  them,  to  say 
farewell,  came  friends  and  family.  There 
was  one  group  that  was  all  comedy,  a  hand- 
some young  man  under  thirty,  his  mother 
and  a  young  girl  who  might  have  been  his 
wife  or  sister. 

They  had  brought  him  food  for  the  jour- 
ney; chocolate,  a  long  loaf,  tins  of  sardines, 

12 


THANKS  AMERICA 

a  bottle  of  wine;  and  the  fun  was  in  trying 
to  find  any  pocket,  bag,  or  haversack  not  al- 
ready filled.  They  were  all  laughing,  the 
little,  fat  mother  rather  mechanically,  when 
the  whistle  blew. 

It  was  one  of  those  shrill,  long-drawn 
whistles  without  which  in  Europe  no  train 
can  start.  It  had  a  peevish,  infantile  sound, 
like  the  squeak  of  a  nursery  toy.  But  it  was 
as  ominous  as  though  some  one  had  fired  a 
siege-gun. 

The  soldiers  raced  for  the  cars,  and  the 
one  in  front  of  me,  suddenly  grown  grave, 
stooped  and  kissed  the  fat,  little  mother. 

She  was  still  laughing;  but  at  his  embrace 
and  at  the  meaning  of  it,  at  the  thought  that 
the  son,  who  to  her  was  always  a  baby, 
might  never  again  embrace  her,  she  tore  her- 
self from  him  sobbing  and  fled  —  fled  blindly 
as  though  to  escape  from  her  grief. 

Other  women,  their  eyes  filled  with  sud- 
den tears,  made  way,  and  with  their  ringers 
pressed  to  their  lips  turned  to  watch  her. 

13 


PRESIDENT  POINCARfc 

The  young  soldier  kissed  the  wife,  or  sister, 
or  sweetheart,  or  whatever  she  was,  sketchily 
on  one  ear  and  shoved  her  after  the  fleeing 
figure. 

"Guardez  mama!"  he  said. 

It  is  the  tragedy  that  will  never  grow  less, 
and  never  grow  old. 

One  who  left  Paris  in  October,  1914,  and 
returned  in  October,  1915,  finds  her  calm, 
confident;  her  social  temperature  only  a  lit- 
tle below  normal. 

A  year  ago  the  gray-green  tidal  wave  of 
the  German  armies  that  threatened  to  en- 
gulf Paris  had  just  been  checked.  With  the 
thunder  of  their  advance  Paris  was  still 
shaken.  The  withdrawal  of  men  to  the 
front,  and  of  women  and  children  to  Bor- 
deaux and  the  coast,  had  left  the  city  unin- 
habited. The  streets  were  as  deserted  as  the 
Atlantic  City  board  walk  in  January.  For 
miles  one  moved  between  closed  shops. 
Along  the  Aisne  the  lines  had  not  been  dug 
in,  and  hourly  from  the  front  ambulances, 


THANKS  AMERICA 

carrying  the  wounded  and  French  and  Brit- 
ish officers  unwashed  from  the  trenches,  in 
mud-covered,  bullet-scarred  cars,  raced  down 
the  echoing  boulevards.  In  the  few  restau- 
rants open,  you  met  men  who  that  morning 
had  left  the  firing-line,  and  who  after  de- 
jeuner, and  the  purchase  of  soap,  cigarettes, 
and  underclothes,  by  sunset  would  be  back 
on  the  job.  In  those  days  Paris  was  inside 
the  "fire-lines."  War  was  in  the  air;  you 
smelled  it,  saw  it,  heard  it. 

To-day  a  man  from  Mars  visiting  Paris 
might  remain  here  a  week,  and  not  know 
that  this  country  is  waging  the  greatest  war 
in  history.  When  you  walk  the  crowded 
streets  it  is  impossible  to  believe  that  within 
forty  miles  of  you  millions  of  men  are  facing 
each  other  in  a  death  grip.  This  is  so,  first, 
because  a  great  wall  of  silence  has  been 
built  between  Paris  and  the  front,  and,  sec- 
ond, because  the  spirit  of  France  is  too  alive, 
too  resilient,  occupied  with  too  many  inter- 
ests, to  allow  any  one  thing,  even  war,  to 

15 


PRESIDENT  POINCARfi 

obsess  it.  The  people  of  France  have  ac- 
cepted the  war  as  they  accept  the  rigors  of 
winter.  They  may  not  like  the  sleet  and 
snow  of  winter,  but  they  are  not  going  to  let 
the  winter  beat  them.  In  consequence,  the 
shop  windows  are  again  dressed  in  their  best, 
the  kiosks  announce  comedies,  revues,  operas; 
in  the  gardens  of  the  Luxembourg  the  beds 
are  brilliant  with  autumn  flowers,  and  the  old 
gentlemen  have  resumed  their  games  of  cro- 
quet, the  Champs-Elysees  swarms  with  baby- 
carriages,  and  at  the  aperitif  hour  on  the 
sidewalks  there  are  no  empty  chairs.  At 
many  of  the  restaurants  it  is  impossible  to 
obtain  a  table. 

It  is  not  the  Paris  of  the  days  before  the 
war.  It  is  not  "gay  Paris."  But  it  is  a  Paris 
going  about  her  "business  as  usual."  This 
spirit  of  the  people  awakens  only  the  most 
sincere  admiration.  It  shows  great  calm- 
ness, great  courage,  and  a  confidence  that, 
for  the  enemy  of  France,  must  be  disquiet- 
ing. Work  for  the  wounded  and  for  the  fami- 

16 


THANKS  AMERICA 

lies  of  those  killed  in  action  and  who  have 
been  left  without  support  continues.  Only 
now,  after  a  year  of  bitter  experience,  it  is 
no  longer  hysterical.  It  has  been  systema- 
tized, made  more  efficient.  It  is  no  longer 
the  work  of  amateurs,  but  of  those  who  by 
daily  practise  have  become  experts. 

In  Paris  the  signs  of  war  are  not  nearly 
as  much  in  evidence  as  the  activities  of 
peace.  There  are  many  soldiers;  but,  in 
Paris,  you  always  saw  soldiers.  The  only 
difference  is  that  now  they  wear  bandages, 
or  advance  on  crutches.  And,  as  opposed 
to  these  evidences  of  the  great  conflict  going 
on  only  forty  miles  distant,  are  the  flower 
markets  around  the  Madeleine,  the  crowds 
of  women  in  front  of  the  jewels,  furs,  and 
manteaux  in  the  Rue  de  la  Paix. 

It  is  not  that  France  is  indifferent  to  the 
war.  But  that  she  has  faith  in  her  armies, 
in  her  generals.  She  can  afford  to  wait. 
She  drove  the  enemy  from  Paris;  she  is 
teaching  French  in  Alsace;  in  time,  when 

17 


PRESIDENT  POINCARfc 

Joffre  is  ready,  she  will  drive  the  enemy 
across  her  borders.  In  her  faith  in  Joffre, 
she  opens  her  shops,  markets,  schools,  thea- 
tres. It  is  not  callousness  she  shows,  but 
that  courage  and  confidence  that  are  the 
forerunners  of  success. 

But  the  year  of  war  has  brought  certain 
changes.  The  search-lights  have  disappeared. 
It  was  found  that  to  the  enemy  in  the  air 
they  were  less  of  a  menace  than  a  guide. 
So  the  great  shafts  of  light  that  with  maj- 
esty used  to  sweep  the  skies  or  cut  a  path 
into  the  clouds  have  disappeared.  And  nearly 
all  other  lights  have  disappeared.  Those  who 
drive  motor-cars  claim  the  pedestrians  are 
careless;  the  pedestrians  protest  that  the 
drivers  of  motor-cars  are  reckless.  In  any 
case,  to  cross  a  street  at  night  is  an  adven- 
ture. 

Something  else  that  has  disappeared  is  the 
British  soldier.  A  year  ago  he  swarmed, 
now  he  is  almost  entirely  absent.  Outside 
of  the  hospital  corps,  a  British  officer  in  Paris 

18 


THANKS  AMERICA 

is  an  object  of  interest.  In  their  place  are 
many  Belgians,  almost  too  many  Belgians. 
Their  new  khaki  uniforms  are  unsoiled.  Un- 
like the  French  soldiers  you  see,  few  are 
wounded.  The  answer  probably  is  that  as 
they  cannot  return  to  their  own  country, 
they  must  make  their  home  in  that  of  their 
ally.  And  the  front  they  defend  so  valiantly 
is  not  so  extended  that  there  is  room  for  all. 
Meanwhile,  as  they  wait  for  their  turn  in  the 
trenches,  they  fill  the  boulevards  and  cafes. 

This  is  not  true  of  the  French  officers. 
The  few  you  see  are  convalescents,  or  on 
leave.  It  is  not  as  it  was  last  October,  when 
Paris  was  part  of  the  war-  zone.  Up  to  a  few 
days  ago,  until  after  seven  in  the  evening, 
when  the  work  of  the  day  was  supposed  to 
be  finished,  an  officer  was  not  permitted  to 
sit  idle  in  a  cafe.  And  now  when  you  see 
one  you  may  be  sure  he  is  recovering  from 
a  wound,  or  is  on  the  General  Staff,  and  for 
a  few  hours  has  been  released  from  duty. 

It  is  very  different  from  a  year  ago  when 
19 


PRESIDENT  POINCARfe 

every  officer  was  fresh  from  the  trenches  — 
and,  fresh  is  not  quite  the  word,  either  —  and 
he  would  talk  freely  to  an  eager,  sympa- 
thetic group  of  the  battle  of  the  night  before. 
Now  the  wall  of  silence  stretches  around 

TAISEZ-  vous  i 


vous  ecoutent 

Reproduction  of  placard  warning  France  against  spies. 

Paris.  By  posters  it  is  even  enforced  upon 
you.  Before  the  late  minister  of  war  gave  up 
his  portfolio,  by  placards  he  warned  all 
when  in  public  places  to  be  careful  of  what 
they  said.  "Taisez-vous!  Mefiez-vous.  Les 
oreilles  ennemies  vous  ecoutent."  "Be  silent. 
Be  distrustful.  The  ears  of  the  enemies  are 

20 


THANKS  AMERICA 

listening."  This  warning  against  spies  was 
placed  in  tramways,  railroad-trains,  cafes. 
A  cartoonist  refused  to  take  the  good  advice 
seriously.  His  picture  shows  one  of  the 
women  conductors  in  a  street-car  asking  a 
passenger  where  he  is  going.  The  passenger 
points  to  the  warning.  "Silence,"  he  says, 
"some  one  may  be  listening." 

There  are  other  changes.  A  year  ago  gold 
was  king.  To  imagine  any  time  or  place 
when  it  is  not  is  difficult.  But  to-day  an 
American  twenty-dollar  bill  gives  you  a 
higher  rate  of  exchange  than  an  American 
gold  double-eagle.  A  thousand  dollars  in 
bills  in  Paris  is  worth  thirty  dollars  more  to 
you  than  a  thousand  dollars  in  gold.  And 
to  carry  it  does  not  make  you  think  you  are 
concealing  a  forty-five  Colt.  The  decrease 
in  value  is  due  to  the  fact  that  you  cannot 
take  gold  out  of  the  country.  That  is  true 
of  every  country  in  Europe,  and  of  any  kind 
of  gold.  At  the  border  it  is  taken  from  you 
and  in  exchange  you  must  accept  bills.  So, 

21 


PRESIDENT  POINCARfc 

any  one  in  Paris,  wishing  to  travel,  had  best 
turn  over  his  gold  to  the  Bank  of  France.  He 
will  receive  not  only  a  good  rate  of  exchange 
but  also  an  engraved  certificate  testifying  that 
he  has  contributed  to  the  national  defense. 
Another  curious  vagary  of  the  war  that 
obtains  now  is  the  sudden  disappearance  of 
the  copper  sou  or  what  ranks  with  our  penny. 
Why  it  is  scarce  no  one  seems  to  know.  The 
generally  accepted  explanation  is  that  the 
copper  has  flown  to  the  trenches  where  mil- 
lions of  men  are  dealing  in  small  sums.  But 
whatever  the  reason,  the  fact  remains.  In 
the  stores  you  receive  change  in  postage- 
stamps,  and,  on  the  underground  railroad, 
where  the  people  have  refused  to  accept 
stamps  in  lieu  of  coppers,  there  are  incipient 
riots.  One  night  at  a  restaurant  I  was  given 
change  in  stamps  and  tried  to  get  even  with 
the  house  by  unloading  them  as  his  tip  on 
the  waiter.  He  protested  eloquently.  "Let- 
ters I  never  write,"  he  explained.  "To  write 
letters  makes  me  ennui.  And  yet  if  I  wrote 

22 


THANKS  AMERICA 

for  a  hundred  years  I  could  not  use  all  the 
stamps  my  patrons  have  forced  upon  me." 

These  differences  the  year  has  brought 
about  are  not  lasting,  and  are  unimportant. 
The  change  that  is  important,  and  which 
threatens  to  last  a  long  time,  is  the  differ- 
ence in  the  sentiment  of  the  French  people 
toward  Americans. 

Before  the  war  we  were  not  unduly  flat- 
tering ourselves  if  we  said  the  attitude  of 
the  French  toward  the  United  States  was 
friendly.  There  were  reasons  why  they 
should  regard  us  at  least  with  tolerance. 
We  were  very  good  customers.  From  dif- 
ferent parts  of  France  we  imported  wines 
and  silks.  In  Paris  we  spent,  some  of  us 
spent,  millions  on  jewels  and  clothes.  In 
automobiles  and  on  Cook's  tours  every  sum- 
mer Americans  scattered  money  from  Brit- 
tany to  Marseilles.  They  were  the  natural 
prey  of  Parisian  hotel-keepers,  restaurants, 
milliners,  and  dressmakers.  We  were  a  sis- 
ter republic,  the  two  countries  swapped  stat- 

23 


PRESIDENT  POINCARfc 

ues  of  their  great  men  —  we  had  not  forgot- 
ten Lafayette,  France  honored  Paul  Jones. 
A  year  ago,  in  the  comic  papers,  between 
John  Bull  and  Uncle  Sam,  it  was  not  Uncle 
Sam  who  got  the  worst  of  it.  Then  the  war 
came  and  with  it,  in  the  feeling  toward  our- 
selves, a  complete  change.  A  year  ago  we  were 
almost  one  of  the  Allies,  much  more  popular 
than  Italians,  more  sympathetic  than  the 
English.  To-day  we  are  regarded,  not  with 
hostility,  but  with  amazed  contempt. 

This  most  regrettable  change  was  first 
brought  about  by  President  Wilson's  letter 
calling  upon  Americans  to  be  neutral.  The 
French  could  not  understand  it.  From  their 
point  of  view  it  was  an  unnecessary  affront. 
It  was  as  unexpected  as  the  cut  direct  from  a 
friend;  as  unwarranted,  as  gratuitous,  as  a 
slap  in  the  face.  The  millions  that  poured 
in  from  America  for  the  Red  Cross,  the  ser- 
vices of  Americans  in  hospitals,  were  ac- 
cepted as  the  offerings  of  individuals,  not  as 
representing  the  sentiment  of  the  American 

24 


THANKS  AMERICA 

people.  That  sentiment,  the  French  still 
insist  in  believing,  found  expression  in  the 
letter  that  called  upon  all  Americans  to  be 
neutral,  something  which  to  a  Frenchman  is 
neither  fish,  fowl,  nor  good  red  herring. 

We  lost  caste  in  other  ways.  We  supplied 
France  with  munitions,  but,  as  a  purchasing 
agent  for  the  government  put  it  to  me,  we  are 
not  losing  much  money  by  it,  and,  until  the 
French  Government  protested,  and  the  pro- 
test was  printed  all  over  the  United  States, 
some  of  our  manufacturers  supplied  articles 
that  were  worthless.  Doctor  Charles  W. 
Cowan,  an  American  who  in  winter  lives  in 
Paris  and  Nice  and  spends  his  summers  in 
America,  showed  me  the  half  section  of  a 
shoe  of  which  he  said  sixty  thousand  pairs 
had  been  ordered,  until  it  was  found  that 
part  of  each  shoe  was  made  of  brown  paper. 
Certainly  part  of  the  shoe  he  showed  me  was 
made  of  brown  paper. 

When  an  entire  people,  men,  women,  and 
children,  are  fighting  for  their  national  exis- 

25 


PRESIDENT  POINCARfc 

tence,  and  their  individual  home  and  life, 
to  have  such  evidences  of  Yankee  smartness 
foisted  upon  them  does  not  make  for  friend- 
ship. It  inspired  contempt.  This  unpleas- 
ant sentiment  was  strengthened  by  our  fail- 
ure to  demand  satisfaction  for  the  lives  lost 
on  the  Lusitania,  while  at  the  same  time 
our  losses  in  dollars  seemed  to  distress  us  so 
deeply.  But  more  harmful  and  more  un- 
fortunate than  any  other  word  or  act  was  the 
statement  of  President  Wilson  that  we  might 
be  "too  proud  to  fight."  This  struck  the 
French  not  only  as  proclaiming  us  a  cow- 
ardly nation,  but  as  assuming  superiority 
over  the  man  who  not  only  would  fight,  but 
who  was  fighting.  And  as  at  that  moment 
several  million  Frenchmen  were  fighting,  it 
was  natural  that  they  should  laugh.  Every 
nation  in  Europe  laughed.  In  an  Italian 
cartoon  Uncle  Sam  is  shown,  hat  in  hand, 
offering  a  "note"  to  the  German  Emperor 
and  in  another  shooting  Haitians. 
The  legend  reads:  "He  is  too  proud  to 
26 


THANKS  AMERICA 

fight  the  Kaiser,  but  not  too  proud  to  kill 
niggers."  In  London,  "Too  Proud  to  Fight" 
is  in  the  music-halls  the  line  surest  of  rais- 
ing a  laugh,  and  the  recruiting-stations  show 
pictures  of  fat  men,  effeminates,  degenerates, 
and  cripples  labelled:  "These  Are  Too  Proud 
to  Fight!  Are  You?" 

The  change  of  sentiment  toward  us  in 
France  is  shown  in  many  ways.  To  retail 
them  would  not  help  matters.  But  as  one 
hears  of  them  from  Americans  who,  since 
the  war  began,  have  been  working  in  the  hos- 
pitals, on  distributing  committees,  in  the 
banking-houses,  and  as  diplomats  and  con- 
suls, that  our  country  is  most  unpopular  is 
only  too  evident. 

It  is  the  greater  pity  because  the  real  feel- 
ing of  our  people  toward  France  in  this  war 
is  one  of  enthusiastic  admiration.  Of  all  the 
Allies,  Americans  probably  hold  for  the 
French  the  most  hearty  good-feeling,  affec- 
tion, and  good-will.  Through  the  govern- 
ment at  Washington  this  feeling  has  been 

27 


PRESIDENT  POINCARfc 

ill-expressed,  if  not  entirely  concealed.  It  is 
unfortunate.  Mr.  Kipling,  whose  manners 
are  his  own,  has  given  as  a  toast:  "Damn 
all  neutrals."  The  French  are  more  polite. 
But  when  this  war  is  over  we  may  find  that 
in  twelve  months  we  have  lost  friends  of 
many  years.  That  over  all  the  world  we  have 
lost  them. 

That  does  not  mean  that  for  the  help 
Americans  have  given  France  and  her  Allies, 
the  Allies  are  ungrateful.  That  the  French 
certainly  are  not  ungrateful  I  was  given  as- 
surance by  no  less  an  authority  than  the 
President  of  the  republic.  His  assurance 
was  conveyed  to  the  American  people  in  a 
message  of  thanks.  It  is  also  a  message  of 
good-will. 

It  recognizes  and  appreciates  the  sympathy 
shown  to  France  in  her  present  fight  for  lib- 
erty and  civilization  by  those  Americans 
who  remember  that  when  we  fought  for  our 
liberty  France  was  not  neutral,  but  sent  us 
Lafayette  and  Rochambeau,  ships  and  sol- 

28 


THANKS  AMERICA 

diers.  It  is  a  message  of  thanks  from  Presi- 
dent Poincare  to  those  Americans  who  found 
it  less  easy  to  be  neutral  than  to  be  grateful. 

It  was  my  good  fortune  to  be  presented 
by  Paul  Benazet,  a  close  personal  friend  of 
the  President,  and  both  an  officer  of  the  army 
and  a  deputy.  As  a  deputy  before  the  war 
he  helped  largely  in  passing  the  bills  that 
called  for  three  years  of  military  service  and 
for  heavier  artillery.  As  an  officer  he  won 
the  Legion  of  Honor  and  the  Cross  of  War. 
Besides  being  a  brilliant  writer,  M.  Benazet 
is  also  an  accomplished  linguist,  and  as 
President  Poincare  does  not  express  himself 
readily  in  English,  and  as  my  French  is  bet- 
ter suited  to  restaurants  than  palaces,  he 
acted  as  our  interpreter. 

The  arrival  of  important  visitors,  M.  Cam- 
bon,  the  former  ambassador  to  the  United 
States,  and  the  new  prime  minister,  M. 
Briand,  delayed  our  reception,  and  while  we 
waited  we  were  escorted  through  the  official 
rooms  of  the  Elysee.  It  was  a  half-hour  of 

29 


PRESIDENT  POINCARfi 

most  fascinating  interest,  not  only  because 
the  vast  salons  were  filled  with  what,  in  art,  is 
most  beautiful,  but  because  we  were  brought 
back  to  the  ghosts  of  other  days. 

What  we  actually  saw  were  the  best  of 
Gobelin  tapestries,  the  best  of  Sevres  china, 
the  best  of  mural  paintings.  We  walked  on 
silken  carpets,  bearing  the  fleur-de-lis.  We 
sat  on  sofas  of  embroidery  as  fine  as  an  en- 
graving and  as  rich  in  color  as  a  painting  by 
Morland.  The  bright  autumn  sunshine  il- 
luminated the  ormulu  brass  of  the  First  Em- 
pire, gilt  eagles,  crowns,  cupids,  and  the  only 
letter  of  the  alphabet  that  always  suggest 
one  name. 

Those  which  we  brought  back  to  the 
rooms  in  which  once  they  lived,  planned,  and 
plotted  were  the  ghosts  of  Mme.  de  Pom- 
padour, Louis  XVI,  Murat,  Napoleon  I,  and 
Napoleon  III.  We  could  imagine  the  first 
Emperor  standing  with  his  hands  clasped  be- 
hind him  in  front  of  the  marble  fireplace,  his 
figure  reflected  in  the  full-length  mirrors,  his 

30 


THANKS  AMERICA 

features  in  gold  looking  down  at  him  from 
the  walls  and  ceilings.  We  intruded  even 
into  the  little  room  opening  on  the  rose 
garden,  where  for  hours  he  would  pace  the 
floor. 

But,  perhaps,  what  was  of  greatest  inter- 
est was  the  remarkable  adjustment  of  these 
surroundings,  royal  and  imperial,  to  the  sim- 
ple and  dignified  needs  of  a  republic. 

France  is  a  military  nation  and  at  war, 
but  the  evidences  of  militarism  were  entirely 
absent.  Our  own  White  House  is  not  more 
empty  of  uniforms.  One  got  the  impression 
that  he  was  entering  the  house  of  a  private 
gentleman  —  a  gentleman  of  great  wealth  and 
taste. 

We  passed  at  last  through  four  rooms,  in 
which  were  the  secretaries  of  the  President, 
and  as  we  passed,  the  majordomo  spoke  our 
names,  and  the  different  gentlemen  half  rose 
and  bowed.  It  was  all  so  quiet,  so  calm,  so 
free  from  telephones  and  typewriters,  that 
you  felt  that,  by  mistake,  you  had  been 

31 


PRESIDENT  POINCARfc 

ushered  into  the  library  of  a  student  or  a 
Cabinet  minister. 

Then  in  the  fourth  room  was  the  President. 
Outside  this  room  we  were  presented  to  M. 
Sainsere,  the  personal  secretary  of  the  Presi- 
dent, and  without  further  ceremony  M. 
Benazet  opened  the  door,  and  in  the  smallest 
room  of  all,  introduced  me  to  M.  Poincare. 
His  portraits  have  rendered  his  features  fa- 
miliar, but  they  do  not  give  sufficiently  the 
impression  I  received  of  kindness,  firmness, 
and  dignity. 

He  returned  to  his  desk  and  spoke  in  a 
low  voice  of  peculiar  charm.  As  though  the 
better  to  have  the  stranger  understand,  he 
spoke  slowly,  selecting  his  words. 

"I  have  a  great  admiration,"  he  said,  "for 
the  effectiveness  with  which  Americans  have 
shown  their  sympathy  with  France.  They 
have  sent  doctors,  nurses,  and  volunteers  to 
drive  the  ambulances  to  carry  the  wounded. 
I  have  visited  the  hospitals  at  Neuilly  and 
other  places;  they  are  admirable. 

3* 


THANKS  AMERICA 

"The  one  at  Juilly  was  formerly  a  college, 
but  with  ingenuity  they  have  converted  it 
into  a  hospital,  most  complete  and  most  val- 
uable. The  American  colony  in  Paris  has 
shown  a  friendship  we  greatly  appreciate. 
Your  ambassador  I  have  met  several  times. 
Our  relations  are  most  pleasant,  most  sym- 
pathetic." 

I  asked  if  I  might  repeat  what  he  had  said. 
The  President  gave  his  assent,  and,  after  a 
pause,  as  though,  now  that  he  knew  he 
would  be  quoted,  he  wished  to  emphasize 
what  he  had  said,  continued: 

"My  wife,  who  distributes  articles  of  com- 
fort, sent  to  the  wounded  and  to  families  in 
need,  tells  me  that  Americans  are  among  the 
most  generous  contributors.  Many  articles 
come  anonymously  —  money,  clothing,  and 
comforts  for  the  soldiers,  and  layettes  for 
their  babies.  We  recognize  and  appreciate 
the  manner  in  which,  while  preserving  a 
strict  neutrality,  your  country  men  and 
women  have  shown  their  sympathy." 

33 


PRESIDENT  POINCARE 

The  President  rose  and  on  leaving  I  pre- 
sented a  letter  from  ex-President  Roosevelt. 
It  was  explained  that  this  was  the  second 
letter  for  him  I  had  had  from  Colonel  Roose- 
velt, but  that  when  I  was  a  prisoner  with  the 
Germans,  I  had  judged  it  wise  to  swallow 
the  first  one,  and  that  I  had  requested  Colo- 
nel Roosevelt  to  write  the  second  one  on 
thin  paper.  The  President  smiled  and  passed 
the  letter  critically  between  his  thumb  and 
forefinger. 

"This  one,"  he  said,  "is  quite  digestible." 
I  carried  away  the  impression  of  a  kind 
and  distinguished  gentleman,  who,  in  the 
midst  of  the  greatest  crisis  in  history,  could 
find  time  to  dictate  a  message  of  thanks  to 
those  he  knew  were  neutrals  only  in  name. 


34 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  MUD  TRENCHES  OF  ARTOIS 

AMIENS,  October,  1915. 

IN  England  it  is  "business  as  usual";  in 
France  it  is  "war  as  usual."  The  Eng- 
lish tradesman  can  assure  his  customers  that 
with  such  an  "old-established"  firm  as  his 
not  even  war  can  interfere;  but  France,  with 
war  actually  on  her  soil,  has  gone  further 
and  has  accepted  war  as  part  of  her  daily 
life.  She  has  not  merely  swallowed,  but  di- 
gested it.  It  is  like  the  line  in  Pinero's  play, 
where  one  woman  says  she  cannot  go  to  the 
opera  because  of  her  neuralgia.  Her  friend 
replies:  "You  can  have  neuralgia  in  my  box 
as  well  as  anywhere  else."  In  that  spirit 
France  has  accepted  the  war.  The  neuralgia 
may  hurt,  but  she  does  not  take  to  her  bed 
and  groan.  Instead,  she  smiles  cheerfully 

35 


THE  MUD  TRENCHES  OF  ARTOIS 

and  goes  about  her  duties  —  even  sits  in  her 
box  at  the  opera. 

As  we  approached  the  front  this  was  even 
more  evident  than  in  Paris,  where  signs  of 
war  are  all  but  invisible.  Outside  of  Amiens 
we  met  a  regiment  of  Scots  with  the  pipes 
playing  and  the  cold  rain  splashing  their 
bare  legs.  To  watch  them  we  leaned  from 
the  car  window.  That  we  should  be  inter- 
ested seemed  to  surprise  them;  no  one  else 
was  interested.  A  year  ago  when  they  passed 
it  was  "Roses,  roses,  all  the  way" — or  at 
least  cigarettes,  chocolate,  and  red  wine. 
Now,  in  spite  of  the  skirling  bagpipes,  no  one 
turned  his  head;  to  the  French  they  had  be- 
come a  part  of  the  landscape. 
1  A  year  ago  the  roads  at  every  two  hundred 
yards  were  barricaded.  It  was  a  continual 
hurdle-race.  Now,  except  at  distances  of 
four  or  five  miles,  the  barricades  have  disap- 
peared. One  side  of  the  road  is  reserved  for 
troops,  the  other  for  vehicles.  The  vehi- 
cles we  met  —  for  the  most  part  two-wheeled 

36 


THE  MUD  TRENCHES  OF  ARTOIS 

hooded  carts  —  no  longer  contained  peas- 
ants flying  from  dismantled  villages.  In- 
stead, they  were  on  the  way  to  market 
with  garden-truck,  pigs,  and  calves.  On  the 
drivers'  seat  the  peasant  whistled  cheerily 
and  cracked  his  whip.  The  long  lines  of 
London  buses,  that  last  year  advertised  soap, 
mustard,  milk,  and  music-halls,  and  which 
now  are  a  decorous  gray;  the  ambulances; 
the  great  guns  drawn  by  motor-trucks  with 
caterpillar  wheels,  no  longer  surprise  him. 

The  English  ally  has  ceased  to  be  a  stranger, 
and  in  the  towns  and  villages  of  Artois  is  a 
"paying  guest."  It  is  for  him  the  shop-win- 
dows are  dressed.  The  names  of  the  towns 
are  Flemish;  the  names  of  the  streets  are 
Flemish;  the  names  over  the  shops  are  Flem- 
ish; but  the  goods  for  sale  are  marmalade, 
tinned  kippers,  The  Daily  Mail,  and  the 
Pink  'Un. 

"Is  it  your  people  who  are  selling  these 
things?"  I  asked  an  English  officer. 

The  question  amused  him. 
37 


THE  MUD  TRENCHES  OF  ARTOIS 

"Our  people  won't  think  of  it  until  the 
war  is  over,"  he  said,  "but  the  French  are 
different. 

"They  are  capable,  adaptable,  and  oblig- 
ing. If  one  of  our  men  asks  these  shop- 
keepers for  anything  they  haven't  got  they 
don't  say,  'We  don't  keep  it';  they  get  him 
to  write  down  what  it  is  he  wants,  and  send 
for  it." 

It  is  the  better  way.  The  Frenchman  does 
not  say,  "War  is  ruining  me";  he  makes 
the  war  help  to  support  him,  and  at  the  same 
time  gives  comfort  to  his  ally. 

A  year  ago  in  the  villages  the  old  men 
stood  in  disconsolate  groups  with  their  hands 
in  their  pockets.  Now  they  are  briskly  at 
work.  They  are  working  in  the  fields,  in  the 
vegetable-gardens,  helping  the  Territorials 
mend  the  roads.  On  every  side  of  them 
were  the  evidences  of  war  —  in  the  fields 
abandoned  trenches,  barbed-wire  entangle- 
ments, shelters  for  fodder  and  ammunition, 
hangars  for  repairing  aeroplanes,  vast  slaugh- 

38 


THE  MUD  TRENCHES  OF  ARTOIS 

ter-houses,  parks  of  artillery;  and  on  the 
roads  endless  lines  of  lorries,  hooded  ambu- 
lances, marching  soldiers. 

To  us  those  were  of  vivid  interest,  but  to 
the  French  peasant  they  are  in  the  routine 
of  his  existence.  After  a  year  of  it  war 
neither  greatly  distresses  nor  greatly  inter- 
ests him.  With  one  hand  he  fights;  with 
the  other  he  ploughs. 

We  had  made  a  bet  as  to  which  would  see 
the  first  sign  of  real  war,  and  the  sign  of  it 
that  won  and  that  gave  general  satisfaction, 
even  to  the  man  who  lost,  was  a  group  of 
German  soldiers  sweeping  the  streets  of  St. 
Pol.  They  were  guarded  only  by  one  of  their 
own  number,  and  they  looked  fat,  sleek,  and 
contented.  When,  on  our  return  from  the 
trenches,  we  saw  them  again,  we  knew  they 
were  to  be  greatly  envied.  Between  stand- 
ing waist-high  in  mud  in  a  trench  and  being 
drowned  in  it,  buried  in  it,  blown  up  or  as- 
phyxiated, the  post  of  crossing-sweeper  be- 
comes a  sinecure. 

39 


THE  MUD  TRENCHES  OF  ARTOIS 

The  next  sign  of  war  was  more  thrilling. 
It  was  a  race  between  a  French  aeroplane 
and  German  shrapnel.  To  us  the  bursting 
shells  looked  like  five  little  cotton  balls. 
Since  this  war  began  shrapnel,  when  it 
bursts,  has  invariably  been  compared  to  balls 
of  cotton,  and  as  that  is  exactly  what  it 
looks  like,  it  is  again  so  described.  The  balls 
of  cotton  did  not  seem  to  rise  from  the  earth, 
but  to  pop  suddenly  out  of  the  sky. 

A  moment  later  five  more  cotton  balls 
popped  out  of  the  sky.  They  were  much 
nearer  the  aeroplane.  Others  followed,  leap- 
ing after  it  like  the  spray  of  succeeding 
waves.  But  the  aeroplane  steadily  and 
swiftly  conveyed  itself  out  of  range  and  out 
of  sight. 

To  say  where  the  trenches  began  and 
where  they  ended  is  difficult.  We  were  pass- 
ing through  land  that  had  been  retrieved 
from  the  enemy.  It  has  been  fought  for  inch 
by  inch,  foot  by  foot.  To  win  it  back  thou- 
sands of  lives  had  been  thrown  like  dice  upon 

40 


THE  MUD  TRENCHES  OF  ARTOIS 

a  table.  There  were  vast  stretches  of  mud, 
of  fields  once  cultivated,  but  now  scarred 
with  pits,  trenches,  rusty  barbed  wires.  The 
roads  were  rivers  of  clay.  They  were  lined 
with  dugouts,  cellars,  and  caves.  These  bur- 
rows in  the  earth  were  supported  by  beams, 
and  suggested  a  shaft  in  a  disused  mine. 
They  looked  like  the  tunnels  to  coal-pits. 
They  were  inhabited  by  a  race  of  French 
unknown  to  the  boulevards  —  men,  bearded, 
deeply  tanned,  and  caked  with  clay.  Their 
uniforms  were  like  those  of  football  players 
on  a  rainy  day  at  the  end  of  the  first  half. 
We  were  entering  what  had  been  the  village 
of  Ablain,  and  before  us  rose  the  famous 
heights  of  Mont  de  Lorette.  To  scale  these 
heights  seemed  a  feat  as  incredible  as  scaling 
our  Palisades  or  the  sheer  cliff  of  Gibraltar. 
But  they  had  been  scaled,  and  the  side  to- 
ward us  was  crawling  with  French  soldiers, 
climbing  to  the  trenches,  descending  from 
the  trenches,  carrying  to  the  trenches  food, 
ammunition,  and  fuel  for  the  fires. 

41 


THE  MUD  TRENCHES  OF  ARTOIS 

A  cold  rain  was  falling  and  had  turned  the 
streets  of  Ablain  and  all  the  roads  to  it  into 
swamps.  In  these  were  islands  of  bricks 
and  lakes  of  water  of  the  solidity  and  color 
of  melted  chocolate.  Whatever  you  touched 
clung  to  you.  It  was  a  land  of  mud,  clay, 
liquid  earth.  A  cold  wind  whipped  the  rain 
against  your  face  and  chilled  you  to  the 
bone.  All  you  saw  depressed  and  chilled 
your  spirit. 

To  the  "poilus,"  who,  in  the  face  of  such 
desolation,  joked  and  laughed  with  the  civil- 
ians, you  felt  you  owed  an  apology,  for  your 
automobile  was  waiting  to  whisk  you  back 
to  a  warm  dinner,  electric  lights,  red  wine, 
and  a  dry  bed.  The  men  we  met  were  cave- 
men. When  night  came  they  would  sleep 
in  a  hole  in  the  hill  fit  for  a  mud-turtle  or  a 
muskrat. 

They  moved  in  streets  of  clay  two  feet 
across.  They  were  as  far  removed  from  civili- 
zation, as  in  the  past  they  have  known  it,  as 
though  they  had  been  cast  adrift  upon  an 

42 


THE  MUD  TRENCHES  OF  ARTOIS 

island  of  liquid  mud.  Wherever  they  looked 
was  desolation,  ruins,  and  broken  walls,  jum- 
bles of  bricks,  tunnels  in  mud,  caves  in  mud, 
graves  in  mud. 

In  other  wars  the  "front"  was  something 
almost  human.  It  advanced,  wavered,  and 
withdrew.  At  a  single  bugle-call  it  was  elec- 
trified. It  remained  in  no  fixed  place,  but, 
like  a  wave,  enveloped  a  hill,  or  with  gallop- 
ing horses  and  cheering  men  overwhelmed  a 
valley.  In  comparison,  this  trench  work  did 
not  suggest  war.  Rather  it  reminded  you  of 
a  mining-camp  during  the  spring  freshet, 
and  for  all  the  attention  the  cavemen  paid 
to  them,  the  reports  of  their  "seventy-fives" 
and  the  "Jack  Johnsons"  of  the  enemy 
bursting  on  Mont  de  Lorette  might  have 
come  from  miners  blasting  rock. 

What  we  saw  of  these  cave-dwellers  was 
only  a  few  feet  of  a  moat  that  for  three  hun- 
dred miles  like  a  miniature  canal  is  cut  across 
France.  Where  we  stood  we  could  see  of  the 
three  hundred  miles  only  mud  walls,  so  close 

43 


THE  MUD  TRENCHES  OF  ARTOIS 

that  we  brushed  one  with  each  elbow.  By 
looking  up  we  could  see  the  black,  leaden 
sky.  Ahead  of  us  the  trench  twisted,  and  an 
arrow  pointed  to  a  first-aid  dressing-station. 
Behind  us  was  the  winding  entrance  to  a  shel- 
ter deep  in  the  earth,  reinforced  by  cement 
and  corrugated  iron,  and  lit  by  a  candle. 

From  a  trench  that  was  all  we  could  see  of 
the  war,  and  that  is  all  millions  of  fighting 
men  see  of  it  —  wet  walls  of  clay  as  narrow  as 
a  grave,  an  arrow  pointing  to  a  hospital, 
earthen  steps  leading  to  a  shelter  from  sud- 
den death,  and  overhead  the  rain-soaked  sky 
and  perhaps  a  great  bird  at  which  the  enemy 
is  shooting  snowballs. 

In  northern  France  there  are  many  buried 
towns  and  villages.  They  are  buried  in  their 
own  cellars.  Arras  is  still  uninterred.  She 
is  the  corpse  of  a  city  that  waits  for  burial, 
and  day  by  day  the  German  shells  are  try- 
ing to  dig  her  grave.  They  were  at  it  yes- 
terday when  we  visited  Arras,  and  this  morn- 
ing they  will  be  hammering  her  again. 

44 


THE  MUD  TRENCHES  OF  ARTOIS 

Seven  centuries  before  this  war  Arras  was 
famous  for  her  tapestries,  so  famous  that  in 
England  a  piece  of  tapestry  was  called  an 
arras.  Now  she  has  given  her  name  to  a  bat- 
tle—  to  different  battles  —  that  began  with 
the  great  bombardment  of  October  a  year 
ago,  and  each  day  since  then  have  continued. 
On  one  single  day,  June  26,  the  Germans 
threw  into  the  city  shells  in  all  sizes,  from 
three  to  sixteen  inches,  and  to  the  number 
of  ten  thousand.  That  was  about  one  for 
each  house. 

This  bombardment  drove  2,700  inhabitants 
into  exile,  of  whom  1,200  have  now  returned. 
The  army  feeds  them,  and  in  response  they 
have  opened  shops  that  the  shells  have  not 
already  opened,  and  supply  the  soldiers  with 
tobacco,  post-cards,  and  from  those  gardens 
not  hidden  under  bricks  and  cement,  fruit 
and  vegetables.  In  the  deserted  city  these 
civilians  form  an  inconspicuous  element. 
You  can  walk  for  great  distances  and  see 
none  of  them.  When  they  do  appear  in  the 

45 


THE  MUD  TRENCHES  OF  ARTOIS 

empty  streets  they  are  like  ghosts.  Every 
day  the  shells  change  one  or  two  of  them  into 
real  ghosts.  But  the  others  still  stay  on. 
With  the  dogs  nosing  among  the  fallen  bricks, 
and  the  pigeons  on  the  ruins  of  the  cathe- 
dral, they  know  no  other  home. 

As  we  entered  Arras  the  silence  fell  like  a 
sudden  change  of  temperature.  It  was  actual 
and  menacing.  Every  corner  seemed  to 
threaten  an  ambush.  Our  voices  echoed  so 
loudly  that  unconsciously  we  spoke  in  lower 
tones.  The  tap  of  the  captain's  walking- 
stick  resounded  like  the  blow  of  a  hammer. 
The  emptiness  and  stillness  was  like  that  of  a 
vast  cemetery,  and  the  grass  that  had  grown 
through  the  paving-stones  deadened  the 
sound  of  our  steps.  This  silence  was  broken 
only  by  the  barking  of  the  French  seventy- 
fives,  in  parts  of  the  city  hidden  to  us,  the 
boom  of  the  German  guns  in  answer,  and 
from  overhead  by  the  aeroplanes.  In  the  ab- 
solute stillness  the  whirl  of  their  engines  came 
to  us  with  the  steady  vibrations  of  a  loom. 

46 


THE  MUD  TRENCHES  OF  ARTOIS 

In  the  streets  were  shell  holes  that  had  been 
recently  filled  and  covered  over  with  bricks 
and  fresh  earth.  It  was  like  walking  upon 
newly  made  graves.  On  either  side  of  us 
were  gaping  cellars  into  which  the  houses  had 
dumped  themselves  or,  still  balancing  above 
them,  were  walls  prettily  papered,  hung  with 
engravings,  paintings,  mirrors,  quite  intact. 
These  walls  were  roofless  and  defenseless 
against  the  rain  and  snow.  Other  houses 
were  like  those  toy  ones  built  for  children, 
with  the  front  open.  They  showed  a  bed  with 
pillows,  shelves  supporting  candles,  books,  a 
washstand  with  basin  and  pitcher,  a  piano, 
and  a  reading-lamp. 

In  one  house  four  stories  had  been  torn 
away,  leaving  only  the  attic  sheltered  by 
the  peaked  roof.  To  that  height  no  one 
could  climb,  and  exposed  to  view  were  the 
collection  of  trunks  and  boxes  familiar  to 
all  attics.  As  a  warning  against  rough  han- 
dling, one  of  these,  a  woman's  hat-box,  had 
been  marked  "Fragile."  Secure  and  serene, 

47 


THE  MUD  TRENCHES  OF  ARTOIS 

it  smiled  down  sixty  feet  upon  the  mass  of 
iron  and  bricks  it  had  survived. 

Of  another  house  the  roof  only  remained; 
from  under  it  the  rest  of  the  building  had 
been  shot  away.  It  was  as  though  after  a 
soldier  had  been  blown  to  pieces,  his  helmet 
still  hung  suspended  in  mid-air. 

In  other  streets  it  was  the  front  that  was 
intact,  but  when  our  captain  opened  the 
street  door  we  faced  a  cellar.  Nothing  be- 
side remained.  Or  else  we  stepped  upon 
creaky  floors  that  sagged,  through  rooms 
swept  by  the  iron  brooms  into  vast  dust 
heaps.  From  these  protruded  wounded  furni- 
ture —  the  leg  of  a  table,  the  broken  arm  of  a 
chair,  a  headless  statue. 

From  the  debris  we  picked  the  many  little 
heirlooms,  souvenirs,  possessions  that  make 
a  home.  Photographs  with  written  inscrip- 
tions, post-cards  bearing  good  wishes,  orna- 
ments for  the  centre-table,  ornaments  for 
the  person,  images  of  the  church,  all  crushed, 
broken,  and  stained.  Many  shop-vindows 
were  still  dressed  invitingly  as  they  were 

48 


From  a  photograph  by  R.  H.  Davis. 

"  Of  another  house  the  roof  only  remained,  from  under  it  the  rest  of 
the  building  had  been  shot  away." 


THE  MUD  TRENCHES  OF  ARTOIS 

when  the  shell  burst,  but  beyond  the  goods 
exposed  for  sale  was  only  a  deep  hole. 

The  pure  deviltry  of  a  shell  no  one  can 
explain.  Nor  why  it  spares  a  looking-glass 
and  wrecks  a  wall  that  has  been  standing 
since  the  twelfth  century. 

In  the  cathedral  the  stone  roof  weighing 
hundreds  of  tons  had  fallen,  and  directly  be- 
neath where  it  had  been  hung  an  enormous 
glass  chandelier  untouched.  A  shell  loves 
a  shining  mark.  To  what  is  most  beautiful 
it  is  most  cruel.  The  Hotel  de  Ville,  which 
was  counted  among  the  most  presentable 
in  the  north  of  France,  that  once  rose  in  seven 
arches  in  the  style  of  the  Renaissance,  the 
shells  marked  for  their  own. 

And  all  the  houses  approaching  it  from 
the  German  side  they  destroyed.  Not  even 
those  who  once  lived  in  them  could  say 
where  they  stood.  There  is  left  only  a  mess 
of  bricks,  tiles,  and  plaster.  They  suggest 
the  homes  of  human  beings  as  little  as  does 
a  brickyard. 

We  visited  what  had  been  the  head- 
49 


THE  MUD  TRENCHES  OF  ARTOIS 

quarters  of  General  de  Wignacourt.  They 
were  in  the  garden  of  a  house  that  opened 
upon  one  of  the  principal  thoroughfares, 
and  the  floor  level  was  twelve  feet  under 
the  level  of  the  flower-beds.  To  this  sub- 
terranean office  there  are  two  entrances,  one 
through  the  cellar  of  the  house,  the  other 
down  steps  from  the  garden.  The  steps 
were  beams  the  size  of  a  railroad-tie.  Had 
they  not  been  whitewashed  they  would  look 
like  the  shaft  leading  to  a  coal-pit. 

A  soldier  who  was  an  artist  in  plaster  had 
decorated  the  entrance  to  the  shaft  with  an 
ornamental  fagade  worthy  of  any  public 
building.  Here,  secure  from  the  falling  walls 
and  explosive  shells,  the  general  by  tele- 
phone directed  his  attack.  The  place  was 
as  dry,  as  clean,  and  as  compact  as  the  ad- 
miral's quarters  on  a  ship  of  war.  The 
switchboard  connected  with  batteries  buried 
from  sight  in  every  part  of  the  unburied 
city,  and  in  an  adjoining  room  a  soldier  cook 
was  preparing  a  most  appetizing  luncheon. 

So 


THE  MUD  TRENCHES  OF  ARTOIS 

Above  us  was  three  yards  of  cement, 
rafters,  and  earth,  and  crowning  them  grass 
and  flowers.  When  the  owner  of  the  house 
returns  he  will  find  this  addition  to  his  resi- 
dence an  excellent  refuge  from  burglars  or 
creditors. 

Personally  we  were  glad  to  escape  into 
the  open  street.  Between  being  hit  by  a 
shell  and  buried  under  twelve  feet  of  cement 
the  choice  was  difficult. 

We  lunched  in  a  charming  house,  where 
the  table  was  spread  in  the  front  hall.  The 
bed  of  the  officer  temporarily  occupying  the 
house  also  was  spread  in  the  hall,  and  we  were 
curious  to  know,  but  too  proud  to  ask,  why 
he  limited  himself  to  such  narrow  quarters. 
Our  captain  rewarded  our  reticence.  He 
threw  back  the  heavy  curtain  that  con- 
cealed the  rest  of  the  house,  and  showed  us 
that  there  was  no  house.  It  had  been  deftly 
removed  by  a  shell. 

The  owner  of  the  house  had  run  away,  but 
before  he  fled,  fearing  the  Germans  might 


THE  MUD  TRENCHES  OF  ARTOIS 

enter  Arras  and  take  his  money,  he  had  with- 
drawn it  and  hidden  it  in  his  garden.  The 
money  amounted  to  two  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  dollars.  He  placed  it  in  a  lead 
box,  soldered  up  the  opening,  and  buried  the 
box  under  a  tree.  Then  he  went  away  and 
carelessly  forgot  which  tree. 

During  a  lull  in  the  bombardment,  he  re- 
.  turned,  and  until  two  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing dug  frantically  for  his  buried  treasure. 
The  soldier  who  guarded  the  house  told  me 
the  difference  in  the  way  the  soldiers  dig  a 
trench  and  the  way  our  absent  host  dug  for 
his  lost  money  was  greatly  marked.  I  found 
the  leaden  box  cast  aside  in  the  dog-kennel. 
It  was  the  exact  size  of  a  suitcase.  As  none 
of  us  knows  when  he  may  not  have  to  bury 
a  quarter  of  a  million  dollars  hurriedly,  it 
is  a  fact  worth  remembering.  Any  ordinary 
suitcase  will  do.  The  soldier  and  I  examined 
the  leaden  box  carefully.  But  the  owner 
had  not  overlooked  anything. 

When  we  reached  the  ruins  of  the  cathedral, 
5* 


THE  MUD  TRENCHES  OF  ARTOIS 

we  did  not  need  darkness  and  falling  rain  to 
depress  us  further,  or  to  make  the  scene 
more  desolate.  One  lacking  in  all  reverence 
would  have  been  shocked.  The  wanton 
waste,  the  senseless  brutality  in  such  de- 
struction would  have  moved  a  statue.  Walls 
as  thick  as  the  ramparts  of  a  fort  had  been 
blown  into  powdered  chalk.  There  were 
great  breaches  in  them  through  which  you 
could  drive  an  omnibus.  In  one  place  the 
stone  roof  and  supporting  arches  had  fallen, 
and  upon  the  floor,  where  for  two  hundred 
years  the  people  of  Arras  had  knelt  in  prayer, 
was  a  mighty  barricade  of  stone  blocks, 
twisted  candelabra,  broken  praying-chairs, 
torn  vestments,  shattered  glass.  Exposed 
to  the  elements,  the  chapels  were  open  to 
the  sky.  The  rain  fell  on  sacred  emblems 
of  the  Holy  Family,  the  saints,  and  apostles. 
Upon  the  altars  the  dust  of  the  crushed 
walls  lay  inches  deep. 

The  destruction  is  too  great  for  present 
repair.    They  can  fill  the  excavations  in  the 

S3 


THE  MUD  TRENCHES  OF  ARTOIS 

streets  and  board  up  the  shattered  show- 
windows,  but  the  cathedral  is  too  vast,  the 
destruction  of  it  too  nearly  complete.  The 
sacrilege  must  stand.  Until  the  war  is  over, 
until  Arras  is  free  from  shells,  the  ruins  must 
remain  uncared  for  and  uncovered.  And 
the  cathedral,  by  those  who  once  came  to 
it  for  help  and  guidance,  will  be  deserted. 

But  not  entirely  deserted.  The  pigeons 
that  built  their  nests  under  the  eaves  have 
descended  to  the  empty  chapels,  and  in 
swift,  graceful  circles  sweep  under  the  ruined 
arches.  Above  the  dripping  of  the  rain, 
and  the  surly  booming  of  the  cannon,  their 
contented  cooing  was  the  only  sound  of 
comfort.  It  seemed  to  hold  out  a  promise 
for  the  better  days  of  peace. 


54 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  ZIGZAG  FRONT  OF  CHAMPAGNE 

PARIS,  October,  1915. 

IN  Artois  we  were  "personally  conducted/' 
In  a  way,  we  were  the  guests  of  the  war 
department;  in  any  case,  we  tried  to  behave 
as  such.  It  was  no  more  proper  for  us  to 
see  what  we  were  not  invited  to  see  than  to 
bring  our  own  wine  to  another  man's  dinner. 
In  Champagne  it  was  entirely  different. 
I  was  alone  with  a  car  and  a  chauffeur  and 
a  blue  slip  of  paper.  It  permitted  me  to  re- 
main in  a  "certain  place"  inside  the  war, 
zone  for  ten  days.  I  did  not  believe  it  was 
true.  I  recalled  other  trips  over  the  same 
roads  a  year  before  which  finally  led  to  the 
Cherche-Midi  prison,  and  each  time  I  showed 
the  blue  slip  to  the  gendarmes  I  shivered. 
But  the  gendarmes  seemed  satisfied,  and  as 
they  permitted  us  to  pass  farther  and  farther 

55 


THE  ZIGZAG  FRONT 

into  the  forbidden  land,  the  chauffeur  began 
to  treat  me  almost  as  an  equal.  And  so, 
with  as  little  incident  as  one  taxis  from 
Madison  Square  to  Central  Park,  we  mo- 
tored from  Paris  into  the  sound  of  the  guns. 

At  the  "certain  place"  the  general  was 
absent  in  the  trenches,  but  the  chief  of  staff 
asked  what  I  most  wanted  to  see.  It  was  as 
though  the  fairy  godmother  had  given  you 
one  wish.  I  chose  Rheims,  and  to  spend 
the  night  there.  The  chief  of  staff  waved  a 
wand  in  the  shape  of  a  second  piece  of  pa- 
per, and  we  were  in  Rheims.  To  a  colonel 
we  presented  the  two  slips  of  paper,  and,  in 
turn,  he  asked  what  was  wanted.  A  year 
before  I  had  seen  the  cathedral  when  it  was 
being  bombarded,  when  it  still  was  burning. 
I  asked  if  I  might  revisit  it. 

"And  after  that?"  said  the  colonel. 

It  was  much  too  good  to  be  real. 

I  would  wake  and  find  myself  again  in 
Cherche-Midi  prison. 

Outside,  the  sounds  of  the  guns  were  now 
56 


OF  CHAMPAGNE 

very  close.  They  seemed  to  be  just  around 
the  corner,  on  the  roof  of  the  next  house. 

"Of  course,  what  I  really  want  is  to  visit 
the  first  trench." 

It  was  like  asking  a  Mason  to  reveal  the 
mysteries  of  his  order,  a  priest  to  tell  the 
secrets  of  the  confessional.  The  colonel  com- 
manded the  presence  of  Lieutenant  Blank. 
With  alarm  I  awaited  his  coming.  Did  a 
military  prison  yawn,  and  was  he  to  act  as 
my  escort?  I  had  been  too  bold.  ,  I  should 
have  asked  to  see  only  the  third  trench. 

At  the  order  the  colonel  gave,  Lieutenant 
Blank  expressed  surprise.  But  his  colonel, 
with  a  shrug,  as  though  ridding  himself  of 
all  responsibility,  showed  the  blue  slip.  It 
was  a  pantomime,  with  which  by  repeti- 
tion, we  became  familiar.  In  turn  each  offi- 
cer would  express  surprise;  the  other  officer 
would  shrug,  point  to  the  blue  slip,  and  we 
would  pass  forward. 

The  cathedral  did  not  long  detain  us. 
Outside,  for  protection,  it  was  boarded  up, 

57 


THE  ZIGZAG  FRONT 

packed  tightly  in  sand-bags;  inside,  it  had 
been  swept  of  broken  glass,  and  the  paint- 
ings, tapestries,  and  the  carved  images  on 
the  altars  had  been  removed.  A  professional 
sacristan  spoke  a  set  speech,  telling  me  of 
things  I  had  seen  with  my  own  eyes  —  of 
burning  rafters  that  spared  the  Gobelin 
tapestries,  of  the  priceless  glass  trampled 
underfoot,  of  the  dead  and  wounded  Ger- 
mans lying  in  the  straw  that  had  given  the 
floor  the  look  of  a  barn.  Now  it  is  as  empty 
of  decoration  as  the  Pennsylvania  railroad- 
station  in  New  York.  It  is  a  beautiful  shell 
waiting  for  the  day  to  come  when  the  candles 
will  be  relit,  when  the  incense  will  toss  before 
the  altar,  and  the  gray  walls  glow  again  with 
the  colors  of  tapestries  and  paintings.  The 
windows  only  will  not  bloom  as  before.  The 
glass  destroyed  by  the  Emperor's  shells,  all 
the  king's  horses  and  all  the  king's  men  can- 
not restore. 

The  professional  guide,  who  is  already  so 
professional  that  he  is  exchanging  German 

58 


OF  CHAMPAGNE 

cartridges  for  tips,  supplied  a  morbid  detail 
of  impossible  bad  taste.  Among  the  German 
wounded  there  was  a  major  (I  remember  de- 
scribing him  a  year  ago  as  looking  like  a 
college  professor)  who,  when  the  fire  came, 
was  one  of  these  the  priests  could  not  save, 
and  who  was  burned  alive.  Marks  on  the 
gray  surface  of  a  pillar  against  which  he  re- 
clined and  grease  spots  on  the  stones  of  the 
floor  are  supposed  to  be  evidences  of  his 
end,  a  torture  brought  upon  him  by  the 
shells  of  his  own  people.  Mr.  Kipling  has 
written  that  there  are  many  who  "hope  and 
pray  these  signs  will  be  respected  by  our 
children's  children."  Mr.  Kipling's  hope 
shows  an  imperfect  conception  of  the  pur- 
poses of  a  cathedral.  It  is  a  house  dedicated 
to  God,  and  on  earth  to  peace  and  good-will 
among  men.  It  is  not  erected  to  teach  gen- 
erations of  little  children  to  gloat  over  the 
fact  that  an  enemy,  even  a  German  officer, 
was  by  accident  burned  alive. 
Personally,  I  feel  the  sooner  those  who 
59 


THE  ZIGZAG  FRONT 

introduced  "frightfulness"  to  France,  Bel- 
gium, and  the  coasts  of  England  are  hunted 
down  and  destroyed  the  better.  But  the 
stone-mason  should  get  to  work,  and  remove 
those  stains  from  the  Rheims  cathedral. 
Instead,  for  our  children's  children,  would 
not  a  tablet  to  Edith  Cavell  be  better,  or 
one  to  the  French  priest,  Abbe  Thinot,  who 
carried  the  wounded  Germans  from  the  burn- 
ing cathedral,  and  who  later,  while  carrying 
French  wounded  from  the  field  of  battle,  was 
himself  hit  three  times,  and  of  his  wounds 
died? 

I  hinted  to  the  lieutenant  that  the  cathe- 
dral would  remain  for  some  time,  but  that 
the  trenches  would  soon  be  ploughed  into 
turnip-beds. 

So,  we  moved  toward  the  trenches.  The 
officer  commanding  them  lived  in  what  he 
described  as  the  deck  of  a  battleship  sunk 
underground.  It  was  a  happy  simile.  He 
had  his  conning-tower,  in  which,  with  a  tele- 
scope through  a  slit  in  a  steel  plate,  he  could 

60 


OF  CHAMPAGNE 

sweep  the  countryside.  He  had  a  fire-control 
station,  executive  offices,  wardroom,  cook's 
galley,  his  own  cabin,  equipped  with  tele- 
phones, electric  lights,  and  running  water. 
There  was  a  carpet  on  the  floor,  a  gay  cover- 
let on  the  four-poster  bed,  photographs  on  his 
dressing-table,  and  flowers.  All  of  these  were 
buried  deep  underground.  A  puzzling  detail 
was  a  perfectly  good  brass  lock  and  key  on 
his  door.  I  asked  if  it  were  to  keep  out  shells 
or  burglars.  And  he  explained  that  the  door 
with  the  lock  in  tact  had  been  blown  off  its 
hinges  in  a  house  of  which  no  part  was  now 
standing.  He  had  borrowed  it,  as  he  had 
borrowed  everything  else  in  the  subterranean 
war-ship,  from  the  near-by  ruins. 

He  was  an  extremely  light-hearted  and 
courteous  host,  but  he  frowned  suspiciously 
when  he  asked  if  I  knew  a  correspondent 
named  Senator  Albert  Beveridge.  I  hastily 
repudiated  Beveridge.  I  knew  him  not,  I 
said,  as  a  correspondent,  but  as  a  politician 
who  possibly  had  high  hopes  of  the  German 

61 


THE  ZIGZAG  FRONT 

vote.  "He  dined  with  us,"  said  the  colonel, 
"and  then  wrote  against  France/*  I  sug- 
gested it  was  at  their  own  risk  if  they  wel- 
comed those  who  already  had  been  with  the 
Germans,  and  who  had  been  received  by  the 
German  Emperor.  This  is  no  war  for  neutrals. 

Then  began  a  walk  of  over  a  mile  through 
an  open  drain.  The  walls  were  of  chalk  as 
hard  as  flint.  Unlike  the  mud  trenches  in 
Artois,  there  were  no  slides  to  block  the 
miniature  canal.  It  was  as  firm  and  compact 
as  a  whitewashed  stone  cell.  From  the  main 
drain  on  either  side  ran  other  drains,  cul-de- 
sacs,  cellars,  trap-doors,  and  ambushes.  Over- 
head hung  balls  of  barbed  wire  that,  should 
the  French  troops  withdraw,  could  be  dropped 
and  so  block  the  trench  behind  them.  If  you 
raised  your  head  they  playfully  snatched  off 
your  cap.  It  was  like  ducking  under  innu- 
merable bridges  of  live  wires. 

The  drain  opened  at  last  into  a  wrecked 
town.  Its  ruins  were  complete.  It  made 
Pompeii  look  like  a  furnished  flat.  The 

62 


OF  CHAMPAGNE 

officer  of  the  day  joined  us  here,  and  to  him 
the  lieutenant  resigned  the  post  of  guide. 
My  new  host  wore  a  steel  helmet,  and  at  his 
belt  dangled  a  mask  against  gas.  He  led  us 
to  the  end  of  what  had  been  a  street,  and 
which  was  now  barricaded  with  huge  tim- 
bers, steel  doors,  like  those  to  a  gambling 
house,  intricate  cat's  cradles  of  wire,  and 
solid  steel  plates. 

To  go  back  seemed  the  only  way  open. 
But  the  officer  in  the  steel  cap  dived  through 
a  slit  in  the  iron  girders,  and  as  he  disap- 
peared, beckoned.  I  followed  down  a  well 
that  dropped  straight  into  the  very  bowels 
of  the  earth.  It  was  very  dark,  and  only 
crosspieces  of  wood  offered  a  slippery  foot- 
ing. Into  the  darkness,  with  hands  pressed 
against  the  well,  and  with  feet  groping  for  the 
log  steps,  we  tobogganed  down,  down,  down. 
We  turned  into  a  tunnel,  and,  by  the  slant 
of  the  ground,  knew  we  were  now  mounting. 
There  was  a  square  of  sunshine,  and  we  walked 
out,  and  into  a  graveyard.  It  was  like  a  dark 

63 


THE  ZIGZAG  FRONT 

change  in  a  theatre.  The  last  scene  had  been 
the  ruins  of  a  town,  a  gate  like  those  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  studded  with  bolts,  reinforced 
with  steel  plates,  guarded  by  men-at-arms 
in  steel  casques,  and  then  the  dark  change 
into  a  graveyard,  with  grass  and  growing 
flowers,  gravel  walks,  and  hedges. 

The  graves  were  old,  the  monuments  and 
urns  above  them  moss-covered,  but  one  was 
quite  new,  and  the  cross  above  it  said  that 
it  was  the  grave  of  a  German  aviator.  As 
they  passed  it  the  French  officers  saluted. 
We  entered  a  trench  as  straight  as  the  let- 
ter Z.  And  at  each  twist  and  turn  we  were 
covered  by  an  eye  in  a  steel  door.  An  at- 
tacking party  advancing  would  have  had  as 
much  room  in  which  to  dodge  that  eye  as 
in  a  bath-tub.  One  man  with  his  magazine 
rifle  could  have  halted  a  dozen.  And  when 
in  the  newspapers  you  read  that  one  man 
has  captured  twenty  prisoners,  he  probably 
was  looking  at  them  through  the  peep-hole 
in  one  of  those  steel  doors. 

64 


OF  CHAMPAGNE 

We  zigzagged  into  a  cellar,  and  below  the 
threshold  of  some  one's  front  door.  The 
trench  led  directly  under  it.  The  house  into 
which  the  door  had  opened  was  destroyed; 
possibly  those  who  once  had  entered  by  it 
also  were  destroyed,  and  it  now  swung  in 
air  with  men  crawling  like  rats  below  it,  its 
half-doors  banging  and  groaning;  the  wind, 
with  ghostly  fingers,  opening  them  to  no  one, 
closing  them  on  nothing.  The  trench  wriggled 
through  a  garden,  and  we  could  see  flung 
across  the  narrow  strip  of  sky  above  us,  the 
branch  of  an  apple-tree,  and  with  one  shoulder 
brushed  the  severed  roots  of  the  same  tree. 
Then  the  trench  led  outward,  and  we  passed 
beneath  railroad  tracks,  the  ties  reposing  on 
air,  and  supported  by,  instead  of  supporting, 
the  iron  rails. 

We  had  been  moving  between  garden 
walls,  cellar  walls;  sometimes  hidden  by 
ruins,  sometimes  diving  like  moles  into  tun- 
nels. We  remained  on  no  one  level,  or  for 
any  time  continued  in  any  one  direction. 

6s 


THE  ZIGZAG  FRONT 

It  was  entirely  fantastic,  entirely  unreal. 
It  was  like  visiting  a  new  race  of  beings,  who 
turn  day  into  night;  who,  like  bats,  mo- 
lochs,  and  wolves,  hide  in  caves  and  shun 
the  sunlight. 

By  the  ray  of  an  electric  torch  we  saw 
where  these  underground  people  store  their 
food.  Where,  against  siege,  are  great  casks 
of  water,  dungeons  packed  with  ammuni- 
tion, more  dungeons,  more  ammunition.  We 
saw,  always  by  the  shifting,  pointing  finger 
of  the  electric  torch,  sleeping  quarters  under- 
ground, dressing  stations  for  the  wounded 
underground.  In  niches  at  every  turn  were 
gas-extinguishers.  They  were  as  many,  as 
much  as  a  matter  of  course,  as  fire-extin- 
guishers in  a  modern  hotel.  They  were  ex- 
actly like  those  machines  advertised  in  seed 
catalogues  for  spraying  fruit-trees.  They 
are  worn  on  the  back  like  a  knapsack. 
Through  a  short  rubber  hose  a  fluid  attacks 
and  dissipates  the  poison  gases. 

The  sun  set,  and  we  proceeded  in  the  light 
66 


OF  CHAMPAGNE 

of  a  full  moon.  It  needed  only  this  to  give 
to  our  journey  the  unreality  of  a  nightmare. 
Long  since  I  had  lost  all  sense  of  direction. 
It  was  not  only  a  maze  and  labyrinth,  but 
it  held  to  no  level.  At  times,  concealed  by 
walls  of  chalk,  we  walked  erect,  and  then, 
like  woodchucks,  dived  into  earthen  bur- 
rows. For  a  long  distance  we  crawled,  bend- 
ing double  through  a  tunnel.  At  intervals 
lamps,  as  yet  unlit,  protruded  from  either 
side,  and  to  warn  us  of  these  from  the  dark- 
ness a  voice  would  call,  "attention  d  gauche," 
"attention  a  droite."  The  air  grew  foul  and 
the  pressure  on  the  ear-drums  like  that  of 
the  subway  under  the  North  River.  We 
came  out  and  drew  deep  breaths  as  though 
we  had  been  long  under  water. 

We  were  in  the  first  trench.  It  was,  at 
places,  from  three  hundred  to  forty  yards 
distant  from  the  Germans.  No  one  spoke, 
or  only  in  whispers.  The  moonlight  turned 
the  men  at  arms  into  ghosts.  Their  silence 
added  to  their  unreality.  I  felt  like  Rip 

67 


THE  ZIGZAG  FRONT 

Van  Winkle  hemmed  in  by  the  goblin  crew 
of  Hendrik  Hudson.  From  somewhere  near 
us,  above  or  below,  to  the  right  or  left  the 
"seventy-fives,"  as  though  aroused  by  the 
moon,  began  like  terriers  to  bark  viciously. 
The  officer  in  the  steel  casque  paused  to 
listen,  fixed  their  position,  and  named  them. 
How  he  knew  where  they  were,  how  he  knew 
where  he  was  himself,  was  all  part  of  the 
mystery.  Rats,  jet  black  in  the  moonlight, 
scurried  across  the  open  places,  scrambled 
over  our  feet,  ran  boldly  between  them. 
We  had  scared  them,  perhaps,  but  not  half 
so  badly  as  they  scared  me. 

We  pushed  on  past  sentinels,  motionless, 
silent,  fatefully  awake.  The  moonlight  had 
turned  their  blue  uniforms  white  and  flashed 
on  their  steel  helmets.  They  were  like  men 
in  armor,  and  so  still  that  only  when  you 
brushed  against  them,  cautiously  as  men 
change  places  in  a  canoe,  did  you  feel  they 
were  alive.  At  times,  one  of  them  thinking 
something  in  the  gardens  of  barb  wire  had 

68 


OF  CHAMPAGNE 

moved,  would  loosen  his  rifle,  and  there 
would  be  a  flame  and  flare  of  red,  and  then 
again  silence,  the  silence  of  the  hunter  stalk- 
ing a  wild  beast,  of  the  officer  of  the  law, 
gun  in  hand,  waiting  for  the  breathing  of 
the  burglar  to  betray  his  presence. 

The  next  morning  I  called  to  make  my 
compliments  to  General  Franchet  d'Esperay. 
He  was  a  splendid  person  —  as  alert  as  a 
steel  lance.  He  demanded  what  I  had  seen. 

"Nothing!"  he  protested.  "You  have 
seen  nothing.  When  you  return  from  Serbia, 
come  to  Champagne  again  and  I  myself 
will  show  you  something  of  interest." 

I  am  curious  to  see  what  he  calls  "some- 
thing of  interest." 

"I  wonder  what's  happening  in  Buffalo?" 

There  promised  to  be  a  story  for  some  one 
to  write  a  year  after  the  war.  It  would  tell 
how  quickly  Champagne  recovered  from  the 
invasion  of  the  Germans.  But  one  need  not 
wait  until  after  the  war.  The  story  can  be 
written  now. 

69 


THE  ZIGZAG  FRONT 

We  know  that  the  enemy  was  thrown  back 
across  the  Aisne. 

We  know  that  the  enemy  drove  the  French 
and  English  before  him  until  at  the  Forest 
of  Montmorency,  the  Hun  was  within  ten  and 
at  Claye  within  fifteen  miles  of  Paris. 

But  to-day,  by  any  outward  evidence,  he 
would  have  a  hard  time  to  prove  it.  And 
that  is  not  because  when  he  advanced  he 
was  careful  not  to  tramp  on  the  grass  or  to 
pick  the  flowers.  He  did  not  obey  even  the 
warnings  to  automobilists:  "Attention  Us 
en} ants!" 

On  the  contrary,  as  he  came,  he  threw 
before  him  thousands  of  tons  of  steel  and 
iron.  Like  a  cyclone  he  uprooted  trees, 
unroofed  houses;  like  a  tidal  wave  he  ex- 
cavated roads  that  had  been  built  by  the 
Romans,  swept  away  walls,  and  broke  the 
backs  of  stone  bridges  that  for  hundreds  of 
years  had  held  their  own  against  swollen 
rivers. 

A  year  ago  I  followed  the  German  in  his 
70 


OF  CHAMPAGNE 

retreat  from  Claye  through  Meaux,  Chateau 
Thierry  to  Soissons,  where,  on  the  east  bank 
of  the  Aisne,  I  watched  the  French  artillery 
shell  his  guns  on  the  hills  opposite.  The 
French  then  were  hot  upon  his  heels.  In  one 
place  they  had  not  had  time  to  remove  even 
their  own  dead,  and  to  avoid  the  bodies  in 
the  open  road  the  car  had  to  twist  and  turn. 

Yesterday,  coming  back  to  Paris  from  the 
trenches  that  guard  Rheims,  I  covered  the 
same  road.  But  it  was  not  the  same.  It 
seemed  that  I  must  surely  have  lost  the 
way.  Only  the  iron  signs  at  the  crossroads, 
and  the  map  used  the  year  before  and  scarred 
with  my  own  pencil  marks,  were  evidences 
that  again  I  was  following  mile  by  mile  and 
foot  by  foot  the  route  of  that  swift  advance 
and  riotous  retreat. 

A  year  before  the  signs  of  the  retreat  were 
the  road  itself,  the  houses  facing  it,  and  a 
devastated  countryside.  You  knew  then, 
that,  of  these  signs,  some  would  at  once  be 
effaced.  They  had  to  be  effaced,  for  they 


THE  ZIGZAG  FRONT 

were  polluting  the  air.  But  until  the  vil- 
lagers returned  to  their  homes,  or  to  what 
remained  of  their  homes,  the  bloated  car- 
casses of  horses  blocked  the  road,  the  bodies 
of  German  soldiers,  in  death  mercifully  un- 
like anything  human  and  as  unreal  as  fallen 
scarecrows,  sprawled  in  the  fields. 

But  while  you  knew  these  signs  of  the 
German  raid  would  be  removed,  other  signs 
were  scars  that  you  thought  would  be  long 
in  healing.  These  were  the  stone  arches 
and  buttresses  of  the  bridges,  dynamited 
and  dumped  into  the  mud  of  the  Marne  and 
Ourcq,  chateaux  and  villas  with  the  roof 
torn  away  as  deftly  as  with  one  hand  you 
could  rip  off  the  lid  of  a  cigar-box,  or  with 
a  wall  blown  in,  or  out,  in  either  case  ex- 
posing indecently  the  owner's  bedroom,  his 
wife's  boudoir,  the  children's  nursery. 

Other  signs  of  the  German  were  villages 
with  houses  wrecked,  the  humble  shops 
sacked,  garden  walls  levelled,  fields  of  beets 
and  turnips  uprooted  by  his  shells,  or  where 

72 


OF  CHAMPAGNE 

he  had  snatched  sleep  in  the  trampled  mud, 
strewn  with  demolished  haystacks,  vast  trees 
split  clean  in  half  as  though  by  lightning, 
or  with  nothing  remaining  but  the  splintered 
stump.  That  was  the  picture  of  the  roads 
and  countryside  in  the  triangle  of  Soissons, 
Rheims,  and  Meaux,  as  it  was  a  year  ago. 

And  I  expected  to  see  the  wake  of  that 
great  retreat  still  marked  by  ruins  and  dev- 
astation. 

But  I  had  not  sufficiently  trusted  to  the 
indomitable  spirit  of  the  French,  in  their 
intolerance  of  waste,  their  fierce,  yet  or- 
dered energy. 

To-day  the  fields  are  cultivated  up  to  the 
very  butts  of  the  French  batteries.  They 
are  being  put  to  bed,  and  tucked  in  for  the 
long  winter  sleep.  For  miles  the  furrows 
stretch  over  the  fields  in  unbroken  lines. 
Ploughs,  not  shells,  have  drawn  them. 

They  are  gray  with  fertilizers,  strewn 
with  manure;  the  swiftly  dug  trenches  of  a 
year  ago  have  given  way  to  the  peaked 

73 


THE  ZIGZAG  FRONT 

mounds  in  which  turnips  wait  transplanting. 
Where  there  were  vast  stretches  of  mud, 
scarred  with  intrenchments,  with  the  wheel 
tracks  of  guns  and  ammunition  carts,  with 
stale,  ill-smelling  straw,  the  carcasses  of  oxen 
and  horses,  and  the  bodies  of  men,  is  now  a 
smiling  landscape,  with  miles  of  growing 
grain,  green  vegetables,  green  turf. 

In  Champagne  the  French  spirit  and  na- 
ture, working  together,  have  wiped  out  the 
signs  of  the  German  raid.  It  is  as  though 
it  had  never  been.  You  begin  to  believe  it 
was  only  a  bad  dream,  an  old  wife's  tale  to 
frighten  children. 

The  car  moved  slowly,  but,  look  no  matter 
how  carefully,  it  was  most  difficult  to  find 
the  landfalls  I  remembered. 

Near  Feret  Milton  there  was  a  chateau 
with  a  lawn  that  ran  to  meet  the  Paris  road. 
It  had  been  used  as  a  German  emergency 
hospital,  and  previously  by  them  as  an  out- 
post. The  long  windows  to  the  terrace  had 
been  wrecked,  the  terrace  was  piled  high  with 

74 


OF  CHAMPAGNE 

blood-stained  uniforms,  hundreds  of  boots 
had  been  tossed  from  an  upper  story  that 
had  been  used  as  an  operating-room,  and 
mixed  with  these  evidences  of  disaster  were 
monuments  of  empty  champagne-bottles. 

That  was  the  picture  I  remembered.  Yes- 
terday, like  a  mantle  of  moss,  the  lawn  swept 
to  the  road,  the  long  windows  had  been  re- 
placed and  hung  with  yellow  silk,  and,  on 
the  terrace,  where  I  had  seen  the  blood- 
stained uniforms,  a  small  boy,  maybe  the 
son  and  heir  of  the  chateau,  with  hair  flying 
and  bare  legs  showing,  was  joyfully  riding  a 
tricycle. 

Neufchelles  I  remembered  as  a  village 
completely  wrecked  and  inhabited  only  by 
a  very  old  man,  and  a  cat,  that,  as  though 
for  company,  stalked  behind  him. 

But  to-day  Neufchelles  is  a  thriving,  con- 
tented, commonplace  town.  Splashes  of 
plaster,  less  weather-stained  than  the  plaster 
surrounding  them,  are  the  only  signs  remain- 
ing of  the  explosive  shells.  The  stone-mason 

75 


THE  ZIGZAG  FRONT 

and  the  plasterer  have  obliterated  the  work 
of  the  guns,  the  tiny  shops  have  been  refilled, 
the  tide  of  life  has  flowed  back,  and  in  the 
streets  the  bareheaded  women,  their  shoul- 
ders wrapped  in  black  woollen  shawls,  gather 
to  gossip,  or,  with  knitting  in  hand,  call  to 
each  other  from  the  doorways. 

There  was  the  stable  of  a  large  villa  in 
which  I  had  seen  five  fine  riding-horses 
lying  on  the  stones,  each  with  a  bullet-hole 
over  his  temple.  In  the  retreat  they  had 
been  destroyed  to  prevent  the  French  using 
them  as  remounts. 

This  time,  as  we  passed  the  same  stable- 
yard,  fresh  horses  looked  over  the  half -doors, 
the  lofts  were  stuffed  with  hay;  in  the  corner, 
against  the  coming  of  winter,  were  piled 
many  cords  of  wood,  and  rival  chanticleers, 
with  their  harems,  were  stalking  proudly 
around  the  stable-yard,  pecking  at  the  scat- 
tered grain.  It  was  a  picture  of  comfort 
and  content.  It  continued  like  that  all  the 
way. 

76 


OF  CHAMPAGNE 

Even  the  giant  poplars  that  line  the  road 
for  four  miles  out  of  Meaux  to  the  west, 
and  that  had  been  split  and  shattered,  are 
now  covered  with  autumn  foliage,  the  scars 
are  overgrown  and  by  doctor  nature  the  raw 
spots  have  been  cauterized  and  have  healed. 

The  stone  bridges,  that  at  Meaux  and  be- 
yond the  Chateau  Thierry  sprawled  in  the 
river,  again  have  been  reared  in  air.  People 
have  already  forgotten  that  a  year  ago  to 
reach  Soissons  from  Meaux  the  broken  bridges 
forced  them  to  make  a  detour  of  fifty  miles. 

The  lesson  of  it  is  that  the  French  people 
have  no  time  to  waste  upon  post  mortems. 
With  us,  fifty  years  after  the  event,  there 
are  those  who  still  talk  of  Sherman's  raid 
through  Columbia,  who  are  so  old  that  they 
hum  hymns  of  hate  about  it.  How  much 
wiser,  how  much  more  proud,  is  the  village 
of  Neufchelles ! 

Not  fifty,  but  only  one  year  has  passed 
since  the  Germans  wrecked  Neufchelles,  and 
already  it  has  been  rebuilt  and  repopulated 

77 


THE  ZIGZAG  FRONT  OF  CHAMPAGNE 

—  not  after  the  war  has  for  half  a  century 
been  at  an  end,  but  while  war  still  endures, 
while  it  is  but  twenty  miles  distant!  What 
better  could  illustrate  the  spirit  of  France 
or  better  foretell  her  final  victory? 


CHAPTER  IV 
FROM  PARIS  TO  THE  PIR^US 

ATHENS,  November,  1915. 

AT  home  we  talk  glibly  of  a  world  war. 
But  beyond  speculating  in  munitions 
and  as  to  how  many  Americans  will  be  killed 
by  the  next  submarine,  and  how  many  notes 
the  President  will  write  about  it,  we  hardly 
appreciate  that  this  actually  is  a  war  of  the 
world,  that  all  over  the  globe,  every  ship 
of  state,  even  though  it  may  be  trying  to 
steer  a  straight  course,  is  being  violently 
rocked  by  it.  Even  the  individual,  as  he 
moves  from  country  to  country,  is  rocked 
by  it,  not  violently,  but  continuously.  It  is 
in  loss  of  time  and  money  he  feels  it  most. 
And  as  he  travels,  he  learns,  as  he  cannot 
learn  from  a  map,  how  far-reaching  are  the 
ramifications  of  this  war,  in  how  many  dif- 
ferent ways  it  affects  every  one.  He  soon 

79 


FROM  PARIS  TO  THE  PIR^US 

comes  to  accept  whatever  happens  as  directly 
due  to  the  war  —  even  when  the  deck  stew- 
ard tells  him  he  cannot  play  shuffle-board  be- 
cause, owing  to  the  war,  there  is  no  chalk. 

In  times  of  peace  to  get  to  this  city  from 
Paris  did  not  require  more  than  six  days, 
but  now,  owing  to  the  war,  in  making  the 
distance  we  wasted  fifteen.  That  is  not 
counting  the  time  in  Paris  required  by  the 
police  to  issue  the  passport,  without  which 
no  one  can  leave  France.  At  the  prefecture 
of  police  I  found  a  line  of  people  —  French, 
Italians,  Americans,  English  —  in  columns  of 
four  and  winding  through  gloomy  halls,  down 
dark  stairways,  and  out  into  the  street.  I 
took  one  look  at  the  line  and  fled  to  Mr. 
Thackara,  our  consul-general,  and,  thanks 
to  him,  was  not  more  than  an  hour  in  obtain- 
ing my  laisser-passer.  The  police  assured 
me  I  might  consider  myself  fortunate,  as 
the  time  they  usually  spent  in  preparing  a 
passport  was  two  days.  It  was  still  neces- 
sary to  obtain  a  vise  from  the  Italian  con- 

80 


FROM  PARIS  TO  THE  PIRAEUS 

sulate  permitting  me  to  enter  Italy,  from 
the  Greek  consulate  to  enter  Greece,  and,  as 
my  American  passport  said  nothing  of  Ser- 
bia, from  Mr.  Thackara  two  more  vises, 
one  to  get  out  of  France,  and  another  to  in- 
vade Serbia.  Thanks  to  the  war,  in  obtain- 
ing all  these  autographs  two  more  days 
were  wasted.  In  peace  times  one  had  only 
to  go  to  Cook's  and  buy  a  ticket.  In  those 
days  there  was  no  more  delay  than  in  reserv- 
ing a  seat  for  the  theatre. 

War  followed  us  south.  The  windows  of 
the  wagon-lit  were  plastered  with  warnings 
to  be  careful,  to  talk  to  no  strangers;  that 
the  enemy  was  listening.  War  had  invaded 
even  Aix-les-Bains,  most  lovely  of  summer 
pleasure-grounds.  As  we  passed,  it  was 
wrapped  in  snow;  the  Cat's  Tooth,  that 
towers  between  Aixe  and  Chambery,  and 
that  lifts  into  the  sky  a  great  cross  two  hun- 
dred feet  in  height,  was  all  white,  the  pine- 
trees  around  the  lake  were  white,  the  streets 
were  white,  the  Casino  des  Fleurs,  the  Cercle, 

81 


FROM  PARIS  TO  THE  PIR^US 

the  hotels.  And  above  each  of  them,  where 
once  was  only  good  music,  good  wines,  beau- 
tiful flowers,  and  baccarat,  now  droop  innu- 
merable Red  Cross  flags.  Against  the  snow- 
covered  hills  they  were  like  little  splashes  of 
blood. 

War  followed  us  into  Italy.  But  from  the 
war  as  one  finds  it  in  England  and  France  it 
differed.  Perhaps  we  were  too  far  west,  but 
except  for  the  field  uniforms  of  green  and 
the  new  scabbards  of  gun-metal,  and,  at 
Turin,  four  aeroplanes  in  the  air  at  the  same 
time,  you  might  not  have  known  that  Italy 
was  one  of  the  Allies.  For  one  thing,  you 
saw  no  wounded.  Again,  perhaps,  it  was 
because  we  were  too  far  south  and  west,  and 
that  the  fighting  in  Tyrol  is  concentrated. 
But  Bordeaux  is  farther  from  the  battle-line 
of  France  than  is  Naples  from  the  Italian 
front,  and  the  multitudes  of  wounded  in 
Bordeaux,  the  multitudes  of  women  in  black 
in  Bordeaux,  make  one  of  the  most  appalling, 
most  significant  pictures  of  this  war.  In 

82 


FROM  PARIS  TO  THE  PIR^US 

two  days  in  Naples  I  did  not  see  one  wounded 
man.  But  I  saw  many  Germans  and  Ger- 
man signs,  and  no  one  had  scratched  Mumm 
off  the  wine-card.  A  country  that  is  one  of 
the  Allies,  and  yet  not  at  war  with  Germany, 
cannot  be  taken  very  seriously.  Indeed,  in 
England  the  War  Office  staff  speak  of  the 
Italian  communiques  as  the  "weather  re- 
ports." 

In  Naples  the  foreigners  accuse  Italy  of 
running  with  the  hare  and  the  hounds. 
They  asked  what  is  her  object  in  keeping  on 
friendly  terms  with  the  bitterest  enemy  of 
the  Allies.  Is  there  an  understanding  that 
after  the  war  she  and  Germany  will  together 
carve  slices  off  of  Austria?  Whatever  her 
ulterior  object  may  be,  her  present  war 
spirit  does  not  impress  the  visitor.  It  is  not 
the  spirit  of  France  and  England.  One  man 
said  to  me:  "Why  can't  you  keep  the  Italian- 
Americans  in  America?  Over  there  they 
earn  money,  and  send  millions  of  it  to  Italy. 
When  they  come  here  to  fight,  not  only  that 

83 


FROM  PARIS  TO  THE  PIR^US 

money  stops,  but  we  have  to  feed  and  pay 
them." 

It  did  not  sound  grateful.  Nor  as  though 
Italy  were  seriously  at  war.  You  do  not  find 
France  and  England,  or  Germany,  grudging 
the  man  who  returns  to  fight  for  his  country 
his  rations  and  pay.  And  Italy  pays  her 
soldiers  five  cents  a  day.  Many  of  the 
reservists  and  volunteers  from  America  who 
answered  the  call  to  arms  are  bitterly  disap- 
pointed. It  was  their  hope  to  be  led  at  once 
to  the  firing-line.  Instead,  after  six  months, 
they  are  still  in  camp.  The  families  some 
brought  with  them  are  in  great  need.  They 
are  not  used  to  living  on  five  cents  a  day. 
An  Italian  told  me  the  heaviest  drain  upon 
the  war-relief  funds  came  from  the  families 
of  these  Italian-Americans,  stranded  in  their 
own  country.  He  also  told  me  his  chief  duty 
was  to  meet  them  on  their  arrival. 

"But  haven't  they  money  when  they  ar- 
rive from  America?"  I  asked. 

"That's  it,"  he  said  naively.  "I'm  at  the 
84 


FROM  PARIS  TO  THE  PIR^US 

wharf  to  keep  their  countrymen  from  rob- 
bing them  of  it." 

At  present  in  Europe  you  cannot  take 
gold  out  of  any  country  that  is  at  war.  As 
a  result,  gold  is  less  valuable  than  paper, 
and  when  I  exchanged  my  double-eagles  for 
paper  I  lost. 

On  the  advice  of  the  wisest  young  banker 
in  France  I  changed,  again  at  a  loss,  the 
French  paper  into  Bank  of  England  notes. 
But  when  I  arrived  in  Salonika  I  found  that 
with  the  Greeks  English  bank-notes  were 
about  as  popular  as  English  troops,  and 
that  had  I  changed  my  American  gold  into 
American  notes,  as  was  my  plan,  I  would 
have  been  passing  rich.  That  is  what  comes 
of  associating  with  bankers. 

At  the  Italian  frontier,  a  French  gentle- 
man had  come  to  the  door  of  the  compart- 
ment, raised  his  hat  to  the  inmates,  and 
asked  if  we  had  any  gold.  Forewarned,  we 
had  not;  and,  taking  our  word  for  it,  he 
again  raised  his  hat  and  disappeared.  But, 

85 


FROM  PARIS  TO  THE  PIRAEUS 

on  leaving  Naples,  it  was  not  like  that.  In 
these  piping  times  of  war  your  baggage  is 
examined  when  you  depart  as  well  as  when 
you  arrive.  You  get  it  coming  and  going. 
But  the  Greek  steamer  was  to  weigh  anchor 
at  noon,  and  at  noon  all  the  port  officials 
were  at  dejeuner;  so,  sooner  than  wait  a 
week  for  another  boat,  the  passengers  went 
on  board  and  carried  their  bags  with  them. 
It  was  unpardonable.  It  was  an  affront  the 
port  officials  could  not  brook.  They  had 
been  disregarded.  Their  dignity  had  been 
flouted.  What  was  worse,  they  had  not  been 
tipped.  Into  the  dining-saloon  of  the  Greek 
steamer,  where  we  were  at  luncheon,  they 
burst  like  Barbary  pirates.  They  shrieked, 
they  yelled.  Nobody  knew  who  they  were, 
or  what  they  wanted.  Nor  did  they  en- 
lighten us.  They  only  beat  upon  the  tables, 
clanked  their  swords,  and  spoiled  our  lunch. 
Why  we  were  abused,  or  of  what  we  were 
accused,  we  could  not  determine.  We 
vaguely  recognized  our  names,  and  stood 
up,  and,  while  they  continued  to  beat  upon 

86 


FROM  PARIS  TO  THE  PIR^US 

the  tables,  a  Greek  steward  explained  they 
wanted  our  gold.  I  showed  them  my  bank- 
notes, and  was  allowed  to  return  to  my 
garlic  and  veal.  But  the  English  cigarette 
king,  who  each  week  sends  some  millions  of 
cigarettes  to  the  Tommies  in  the  trenches, 
proposed  to  make  a  test  case  of  it. 

"I  have  on  me,"  he  whispered,  "four 
English  sovereigns.  I  am  not  taking  them 
out  of  Italy,  because  until  they  crossed  the 
border  in  my  pocket,  they  were  not  in  Italy, 
and  as  I  am  now  leaving  Italy,  one  might 
say  they  have  never  been  in  Italy.  It's  as 
though  they  were  in  bond.  I  am  a  British 
subject,  and  this  is  not  Italian,  but  British, 
gold.  I  shall  refuse  to  surrender  my  four 
sovereigns.  I  will  make  it  a  test  case." 

The  untipped  port  officials  were  still  jan- 
gling their  swords,  so  I  advised  the  cigarette 
king  to  turn  in  his  gold.  Even  a  Greek 
steamer  is  better  than  an  Italian  jail. 

"I  will  make  of  it  a  test  case,"  he  re- 
peated. 

"Let  George  do  it,"  I  suggested. 
87 


FROM  PARIS  TO  THE  PIRAEUS 

At  that  moment,  in  the  presence  of  all 
the  passengers,  they  were  searching  the  per- 
son of  another  British  subject,  and  an  Ally. 
He  was  one  of  Lady  Paget's  units.  He  was 
in  uniform,  and,  as  they  ran  itching  fingers 
over  his  body,  he  turned  crimson,  and  the 
rest  of  us,  pretending  not  to  witness  his  hu- 
miliation, ate  ravenously  of  goat's  cheese. 

The  cigarette  king,  breathing  defiance, 
repeated:  "I  will  make  of  it  a  test  case." 

"Better  let  George  do  it,"  I  urged. 

And  when  his  name  was  called,  a  name 
that  is  as  well  known  from  Ka valla  to  Smyrna 
in  tobacco-fields,  sweetmeat  shops,  palaces, 
and  mosques,  as  at  the  Ritz  and  the  Gaiety, 
the  cigarette  king  wisely  accepted  for  his 
four  sovereigns  Italian  lire.  At  their  rate  of 
exchange,  too. 

Later,  off  Capri,  he  asked:  "When  you 
advised  me  to  let  George  make  a  test  case 
of  it,  to  which  of  our  fellow  passengers  did 
you  refer?" 

In  the  morning  the  Adriaticus  picked  up 
88 


FROM  PARIS  TO  THE  PIRAEUS 

the  landfall  of  Messina,  but,  instead  of  mak- 
ing fast  to  the  quay,  anchored  her  length 
from  it.  This  appeared  to  be  a  port  regula- 
tion. It  enables  the  boatman  to  earn  a  liv- 
ing by  charging  passengers  two  francs  for  a 
round  trip  of  fifty  yards.  As  the  wrecked 
city  seems  to  be  populated  only  by  boatmen, 
rowing  passengers  ashore  is  the  chief  in- 
dustry. 

The  stricken  seaport  looks  as  though  as 
recently  as  last  week  the  German  army 
had  visited  it.  In  France,  although  war 
still  continues,  towns  wrecked  by  the  Ger- 
mans are  already  rebuilt.  But  Messina, 
after  four  years  of  peace,  is  still  a  ruin.  But 
little  effort  has  been  made  to  restore  it. 
The  post-cards  that  were  printed  at  the 
moment  of  the  earthquake  show  her  ex- 
actly as  she  is  to-day.  With,  in  the  streets, 
no  sign  of  life,  with  the  inhabitants  standing 
idle  along  the  quay,  shivering  in  the  rain 
and  snow,  with  for  a  background  crumbling 
walls,  gaping  cellars,  and  hills  buried  under 

89 


FROM  PARIS  TO  THE  PIRAEUS 

acres  of  fallen  masonry,  the  picture  was  one 
of  terrible  desolation,  of  neglect  and  inef- 
ficiency. The  only  structures  that  had  ob- 
viously been  erected  since  the  earthquake 
were  the  "ready-to-wear"  shacks  sent  as 
a  stop-gap  from  America.  One  should  not 
look  critically  at  a  gift-house,  but  they  are 
certainly  very  ugly.  In  Italy,  where  every 
spot  is  a  "location"  for  moving-pictures, 
where  the  street  corners  are  backgrounds 
for  lovers'  trysts  and  assassinations,  where 
even  poverty  is  picturesque,  and  each  land- 
scape "composes"  into  a  beautiful  and  won- 
drous painting,  the  zinc  shacks,  in  rigid 
lines,  like  the  barracks  of  a  mining-camp, 
came  as  a  shock. 

Sympathetic  Americans  sent  them  as  only 
a  temporary  shelter  until  Messina  rose  again. 
But  it  was  explained,  as  there  is  no  rent  to 
pay,  the  Italians,  instead  of  rebuilding,  prefer 
to  inhabit  the  ready-to-wear  houses.  How 
many  tourists  the  mere  view  of  them  will 
drive  away  no  one  can  guess. 

90 


FROM  PARIS  TO  THE  PIR^US 

People  who  linger  in  Naples,  and  by  train 
to  Reggio  join  the  boat  at  Messina,  never 
admit  that  they  followed  that  route  to 
avoid  being  seasick.  Seasickness  is  an  illness 
of  which  no  one  ever  boasts.  He  may  take 
pride  in  saying:  "I've  an  awful  cold!"  or 
"I've  such  a  headache  I  can't  see!"  and 
will  expect  you  to  feel  sorry.  But  he  knows, 
no  matter  how  horribly  he  suffers  from  mal 
de  mer,  he  will  receive  no  sympathy.  In 
a  Puck  and  Punch  way  he  will  be  merely 
comic.  So,  the  passengers  who  come  over 
the  side  at  Messina  always  have  an  excuse 
other  than  that  they  were  dodging  the  sea. 
It  is  usually  that  they  lost  their  luggage  at 
Naples  and  had  to  search  for  it.  As  the 
Italian  railroads,  which  are  operated  by  the 
government,  always  lose  your  luggage,  it  is 
an  admirable  excuse.  So,  also,  is  the  one  that 
you  delayed  in  order  to  visit  the  ruins  of  Pom- 
peii. The  number  of  people  who  have  visited 
Pompeii  solely  because  the  Bay  of  Naples 
was  in  an  ugly  mood  will  never  be  counted. 

91 


FROM  PARIS  TO  THE  PIR^US 

Among  those  who  joined  at  Messina  were 
the  French  princess,  who  talked  American 
much  too  well  to  be  French,  and  French  far 
too  well  to  be  an  American,  two  military 
attaches,  the  King's  messenger,  and  the 
Armenian,  who  was  by  profession  an  olive 
merchant,  and  by  choice  a  manufacturer 
and  purveyor  of  rumors.  He  was  at  once 
given  an  opportunity  to  exhibit  his  genius. 
The  Italians  held  up  our  ship,  and  would 
not  explain  why.  So  the  rumor  man  ex- 
plained. It  was  because  Greece  had  joined 
the  Germans,  and  Italy  had  made  a  prize  of 
her.  Ten  minutes  later,  he  said  Greece  had 
joined  the  Allies,  and  the  Italians  were  hold- 
ing our  ship  until  they  could  obtain  a  convoy 
of  torpedo-boats.  Then  it  was  because  two 
submarines  were  waiting  for  us  outside  the 
harbor.  Later,  it  was  because  the  Allies  had 
blockaded  Greece,  and  our  Greek  captain 
would  not  proceed,  not  because  he  was  de- 
tained by  Italians,  but  by  fear. 

Every  time  the  rumor  man  appeared  in 
92 


FROM  PARIS  TO  THE  PIRAEUS 

the  door  of  the  smoking-room  he  was  wel- 
comed with  ironic  cheers.  But  he  was  not 
discouraged.  He  would  go  outside  and  stand 
in  the  rain  while  he  hatched  a  new  rumor, 
and  then,  in  great  excitement,  dash  back  to 
share  it.  War  levels  all  ranks,  and  the  pas- 
sengers gathered  in  the  smoking-room  play- 
ing solitaire,  sipping  muddy  Turkish  coffee, 
and  discussing  the  war  in  seven  languages,  and 
everybody  smoked  —  especially  the  women. 
Finally  the  military  attaches,  Sir  Thomas 
Cunningham  and  Lieutenant  Boulanger,  put 
on  the  uniforms  of  their  respective  countries 
and  were  rowed  ashore  to  protest.  The 
rest  of  us  paced  the  snow-swept  decks  and 
gazed  gloomily  at  the  wrecked  city.  Out 
of  the  fog  a  boat  brought  two  Sisters  of  the 
Poor,  wrapped  in  the  black  cloaks  of  their 
order.  They  were  petitioners  for  the  poor 
of  Messina,  and  everybody  in  the  smoking- 
room  gave  them  a  franc.  Because  one  of 
them  was  Irish  and  because  it  was  her  fate 
to  live  in  Messina,  I  gave  her  ten  francs. 

93 


FROM  PARIS  TO  THE  PIR^US 

Meaning  to  be  amiable,  she  said:  "Ah,  it 
takes  the  English  to  be  generous!" 

I  said  I  was  Irish. 

The  King's  messenger  looked  up  from  his 
solitaire  and,  also  wishing  to  be  amiable, 
asked:  "What's  the  difference?" 

The  Irish  sister  answered  him. 

"Nine  francs,"  she  said. 

After  we  had  been  prisoners  of  war  for 
twenty-four  hours  John  Bass  of  the  Chicago 
Daily  News  suggested  that  if  we  remained 
longer  at  Messina  our  papers  would  say  we 
thought  the  earthquake  was  news,  and  had 
stopped  to  write  a  story  about  it.  So,  we 
sent  a  telegram  to  our  consul. 

The  American  consul  nearest  was  George 
Emerson  Haven  at  Catania,  by  train  three 
hours  distant.  We  told  him  for  twenty- 
four  hours  we  had  been  prisoners,  and  that 
unless  we  were  set  free  he  was  to  declare 
war  on  Italy.  The  telegram  was  written 
not  for  the  consul  to  read,  but  for  the  bene- 
fit of  the  port  authorities.  We  hoped  it  might 

94 


FROM  PARIS  TO  THE  PIR^US 

impress  them.  We  certainly  never  supposed 
they  would  permit  our  ultimatum  to  reach 
Mr.  Haven.  In  any  case,  the  ship  was  al- 
lowed to  depart.  But  whether  the  com- 
mandant of  the  port  was  alarmed  by  our 
declaration  of  war,  or  the  unusual  spectacle 
of  the  British  attache,  "Tommy"  Cunning- 
ham, in  khaki  while  three  hundred  miles 
distant  from  any  firing-line,  we  will  never 
know.*  But  the  rumor  man  knew,  and  ex- 
plained. 

"We  had  been  delayed,"  he  said,  "because 
Italy  had  declared  war  on  Greece,  and  did 
not  want  the  food  on  board  our  ship  to  enter 
that  country." 

The  cigarette  king  told  him  if  the  food  on 
board  was  the  same  food  we  had  been  eat- 
ing, to  bring  it  into  any  country  was  a 
proper  cause  for  war. 

*  Later  we  were  sorry  we  had  not  been  held  longer  in 
captivity.  The  telegram  reached  our  consul,  and  that  gentle- 
man at  once  journeyed  to  Messina  not  only  to  rescue  us,  but 
to  invite  us  to  a  Thanksgiving  Day  dinner.  A  consul  like 
that  is  wasted  on  the  Island  of  Sicily.  The  State  Depart- 
ment is  respectfully  urged  to  promote  him  to  the  mainland. 

95 


FROM  PARIS  TO  THE  PIRAEUS 

At  noon  we  passed  safely  between  Scylla 
and  Charybdis,  and  the  following  morning 
were  in  Athens. 


CHAPTER  V 

WHY  KING  CONSTANTINE  IS  NEUTRAL 

ATHENS,  November,  1915. 

WE  are  not  allowed  to  tell  what  the 
situation  is  here.  But,  in  spite  of  the 
censor,  I  am  going  to  tell  what  the  situation 
is.  It  is  involved.  That  is  not  because  no 
one  will  explain  it.  In  Greece  at  present,  ex- 
plaining the  situation  is  the  national  pastime. 
Since  arriving  yesterday  I  have  had  the  sit- 
uation explained  to  me  by  members  of  the 
Cabinet,  guides  to  the  Acropolis,  generals  in 
the  army,  Teofani,  the  cigarette  king,  three 
ministers  plenipotentiary,  the  man  from  St. 
Louis  who  is  over  here  to  sell  aeroplanes,  the 
man  from  Cook's,  and  "extra  people,"  like 
soldiers  in  cafes,  brigands  in  petticoats,  and 
peasants  in  peaked  shoes  with  tassels.  They 
asked  me  not  to  print  their  names,  which 
was  just  as  well,  as  I  cannot  spell  them. 

97 


WHY  KING  CONSTANTINE 

They  each  explained  the  situation  differently, 
but  all  agree  it  is  involved. 

To  understand  it,  you  must  go  back  to 
Helen  of  Troy,  take  a  running  jump  from  the 
Greek  war  for  independence  and  Lord  Byron 
to  Mr.  Gladstone  and  the  Bulgarian  atroci- 
ties, note  the  influence  of  the  German  Em- 
peror at  Corfu,  appreciate  the  intricacies  of 
Russian  diplomacy  in  Belgrade,  the  rise  of 
Enver  Pasha  and  the  Young  Turks,  what 
Constantine  said  to  Venizelos  about  giving 
up  Kavalla,  and  the  cablegram  Prince  Danilo, 
of  "Merry  Widow"  fame,  sent  to  his  cousin 
of  Italy.  By  following  these  events,  the  sit- 
uation is  as  easy  to  grasp  as  an  eel  that  has 
swallowed  the  hook  and  cannot  digest  it. 

For  instance,  Mr.  Poneropolous,  the  well- 
known  contractor  who  sells  shoes  to  the 
army,  informs  me  the  Greeks  as  one  man 
want  war.  They  are  even  prepared  to  fight 
for  it.  On  the  other  hand,  Axon  Skiadas, 
the  popular  barber  of  the  Hotel  Grande 
Bretagne,  who  has  just  been  called  to  the 

98 


IS  NEUTRAL 

colors,  assures  me  no  patriot  would  again 
plunge  this  country  into  conflict. 

The  diplomats  also  disagree,  especially 
as  to  which  of  them  is  responsible  for  the 
failure  of  Greece  to  join  the  Allies.  The 
one  who  is  to  blame  for  that  never  is  the 
one  who  is  talking  to  you.  The  one  who  is 
talking  is  always  the  one  who,  had  they 
followed  his  advice,  could  have  saved  the 
"situation."  They  did  not,  and  now  it  is 
involved,  not  to  say  addled.  The  military 
attache  of  Great  Britain  volunteered  to  set 
the  situation  before  me  in  a  few  words. 
After  explaining  for  two  hours,  he  asked  me 
to  promise  not  to  repeat  what  he  had  said. 
I  promised.  Another  diplomat,  who  was  pro- 
jected into  the  service  by  William  Jennings 
Bryan,  said  if  he  told  all  he  knew  about  the 
situation  "the  world  would  burst."  Those 
are  his  exact  words.  It  would  have  been 
an  event  of  undoubted  news  value,  and  as 
a  news-gatherer  I  should  have  coaxed  his 
secret  from  him,  but  it  seemed  as  though 

99 


WHY  KING  CONSTANTINE 

the  world  is  in  trouble  enough  as  it  is,  and  if 
it  must  burst  I  want  it  to  burst  when  I  am 
nearer  home.  So  I  switched  him  off  to  the 
St.  Louis  convention,  where  he  was  prob- 
ably more  useful  than  he  will  ever  be  in  the 
Balkans. 

While  every  one  is  guessing,  the  writer 
ventures  to  make  a  guess.  It  is  that  Greece 
will  remain  neutral,  or  will  join  the  Allies. 
Without  starving  to  death  she  cannot  join 
the  Germans.  Greece  is  non-supporting. 
What  she  eats  comes  in  the  shape  of  wheat 
from  outside  her  borders,  from  the  grain- 
fields  of  Russia,  Egypt,  Bulgaria,  France, 
and  America.  When  Denys  Cochin,  the 
French  minister  to  Athens,  had  his  inter- 
view with  the  King,  the  latter  became  angry 
and  said,  "We  can  get  along  without  France's 
money,"  and  Cochin  said:  "That  is  true, 
but  you  cannot  get  along  without  France's 
wheat." 

The  Allies  are  not  going  to  bombard 
Greek  ports  or  shell  the  Acropolis.  They 

100 


IS  NEUTRAL 

will  not  even  blockade  the  ports.  But  their 
fleets  —  French,  Italian,  English  —  will  stop 
all  ships  taking  foodstuffs  to  Greece.  They 
have  just  released  seven  grain  ships  from 
America,  that  were  held  up  at  Malta,  and 
ships  carrying  food  to  Greece  have  been 
stopped  at  points  as  far  away  as  Gibraltar. 
As  related  in  the  last  chapter,  the  Greek 
steamer  on  which  we  sailed  from  Naples 
was  held  up  at  Messina  for  twenty-four 
hours  until  her  cargo  was  overhauled.  As 
we  had  nothing  in  the  hold  more  health- 
sustaining  than  hides  and  barbed  wire,  we 
were  allowed  to  proceed. 

Whatever  course  Greece  follows,  her  de- 
pendence upon  others  for  food  explains  her 
act.  To-day  (November  29)  there  is  not 
enough  wheat  in  the  country  to  feed  the 
people  for,  some  say  three  —  the  most  op- 
timistic, ten  —  days.  Should  she  decide  to 
join  Germany  she  would  starve.  It  would 
be  deliberate  suicide.  The  French  and  Ital- 
ian fleets  are  at  Malta,  less  than  a  day  dis- 

IOI 


WHY  KING  CONSTANTINE 

tant;  the  English  fleet  is  off  the  Gallipoli 
peninsula.  Fifteen  hours'  steaming  could 
bring  it  to  Salonika.  Greece  is  especially 
vulnerable  from  the  sea.  She  is  all  islands, 
coast  towns,  and  seaports.  The  German 
navy  could  not  help  her.  It  will  not  leave 
the  Kiel  Canal.  The  Austrian  navy  cannot 
leave  the  Adriatic.  Should  Greece  decide 
against  the  Allies,  their  combined  war-ships 
would  pick  up  her  islands  and  blockade  her 
ports.  In  a  week  she  would  be  starving. 
The  railroad  from  Bulgaria  to  Salonika,  over 
which  in  peace  times  comes  much  wheat 
from  Roumania,  would  be  closed  to  her. 
Even  if  the  Germans  and  Bulgarians  suc- 
ceeded in  winning  it  to  the  coast,  they  could 
get  no  food  for  Greece  farther  than  that. 
They  have  no  war-ships,  and  the  Gulf  of 
Salonika  is  full  of  those  of  the  Allies. 

The  position  of  King  Constantine  is  very 
difficult.  He  is  supposed  to  be  strongly  pro- 
German,  and  the  reason  for  his  sympathy 
that  is  given  here  is  the  same  as  is  accepted 

1 02 


From  a  photograph  by  Underwood  and  Underwood. 

King  Constantine  of  Greece  and  commander-in-chief  of  her 
armies. 

In  two  years  he  led  his  people  to  victory  in  two  wars.  If  now  they  desire 
peace  and  in  this  big  war  the  right  to  remain  neutral,  he  thinks  they  have 
earned  that  right. 


IS  NEUTRAL 

in  America.  Every  act  of  his  is  supposed 
to  be  inspired  by  family  influences,  when, 
as  he  has  stated  publicly  through  his  friend 
Walter  Harris  of  the  London  Times,  he  is 
pro-English,  and  has  been  actuated  solely 
by  what  he  thought  was  best  for  his  own 
people.  Indeed,  there  are  many  who  believe 
if  the  terms  upon  which  Greece  might  join 
the  Allies  had  been  left  to  the  King  instead 
of  to  Venizelos,  Greece  now  would  be  with 
the  Entente. 

Or,  if  Greece  remained  neutral,  no  one 
could  better  judge  whether  neutrality  was 
or  was  not  best  for  her  than  Constantine. 
In  the  three  years  before  the  World  War, 
he  had  led  his  countrymen  through  two 
wars,  and  if  both,  as  King  and  commander 
of  her  armies,  he  thought  they  needed  rest 
and  peace,  he  was  entitled  to  that  opinion. 
Instead,  he  was  misrepresented  and  abused. 
His  motives  were  assailed;  he  was  accused 
of  being  dominated  by  his  Imperial  brother- 
in-law.  At  no  time  since  the  present  war 

103 


WHY  KING  CONSTANTINE 

began  has  he  been  given  what  we  would 
call  a  "square  deal."  The  writer  has  followed 
the  career  of  Constantine  since  the  Greek- 
Turkish  war  of  1897,  when  they  "drank 
from  the  same  canteen,"  and  as  Kings  go,  or 
until  they  all  do  go,  respects  him  as  a  good 
King.  To  his  people  he  is  generous,  kind, 
and  considerate;  as  a  general  he  has  added 
to  the  territory  of  Greece  many  miles  and 
seaports;  he  is  fond  of  his  home  and  family, 
and  in  his  reign  there  has  been  no  scandal, 
no  Knights  of  the  Round  Table,  such  as 
disgraced  the  German  court,  no  Tripoli  mas- 
sacre, no  Congo  atrocities,  no  Winter  Garden 
or  La  Scala  favorites.  Venizelos  may  or 
may  not  be  as  unselfish  a  patriot.  But 
justly  or  not,  it  is  difficult  to  disassociate 
what  Venizelos  wants  for  Greece  with  what 
he  wants  for  Venizelos.  The  King  is  re- 
moved from  any  such  suspicion.  He  is 
already  a  King,  and  except  in  continuing 
to  be  a  good  King,  he  can  go  no  higher. 
How  Venizelos  came  so  prominently  into 
104 


IS  NEUTRAL 

the  game  is  not  without  interest.  As  long 
ago  as  when  the  two  German  cruisers  escaped 
from  Messina  and  were  sold  to  Turkey,  the 
diplomatic  representatives  of  the  Allies  in  the 
Balkans  were  instructed  to  see  that  Turkey 
and  Germany  did  not  get  together,  and  that, 
as  a  balance  of  power  in  case  of  such  a 
union,  the  Balkan  States  were  kept  in  line. 
Instead  of  themselves  attending  to  this,  the 
diplomats  placed  the  delicate  job  in  the  hands 
of  one  man.  At  the  framing  of  the  Treaty 
of  London,  of  all  the  representatives  from  the 
Balkans,  the  one  who  most  deeply  impressed 
the  other  powers  was  M.  Venizelos.  And  the 
task  of  keeping  the  Balkans  neutral  or  with 
the  Allies  was  left  to  him. 

He  has  a  dream  of  a  Balkan  "band,"  a 
union  of  all  the  Balkan  principalities.  It 
obsesses  him.  And  to  bring  that  dream  true 
he  was  willing  to  make  concessions  which 
King  Constantine,  who  considered  only  what 
was  good  for  Greece,  and  was  not  concerned 
with  a  Balkan  alliance,  thought  most  un- 

105 


WHY  KING  CONSTANTINE 

wise.  Venizelos  also  was  working  for  the 
good  of  Greece,  but  he  was  convinced  it 
could  come  to  her  only  through  the  union. 
He  was  willing  to  give  Kavalla  to  Bulgaria 
in  exchange  for  Asia  Minor,  from  the  Dar- 
danelles to  Smyrna.  But  the  King  would 
not  consent.  As  a  buffer  against  Turkey, 
he  considered  Kavalla  of  the  greatest  stra- 
tegic value,  and  he  had  the  natural  pride  of 
a  soldier  in  holding  on  to  land  he  himself 
had  added  to  his  country.  But  in  his  op- 
position to  Venizelos  in  this  particular,  credit 
was  not  given  him  for  acting  in  the  interests 
of  Greece,  but  of  playing  into  the  hands  of 
Germany. 

Another  step  he  refused  to  take,  which 
refusal  the  Allies  attributed  to  his  pro- 
German  leanings,  was  to  attack  the  Dar- 
danelles. In  the  wars  of  1912-13  the  King 
showed  he  was  an  able  general.  With  his 
staff  he  had  carefully  considered  an  at- 
tack upon  the  Dardanelles.  He  submitted 
this  plan  to  the  Allies,  and  was  willing  to 

106 


IS  NEUTRAL 

aid  them  if  they  brought  to  the  assault 
400,000  men.  They  claim  he  failed  them. 
He  did  fail  them,  but  not  until  after  they 
had  failed  him  by  bringing  thousands  of 
men  instead  of  the  tens  of  thousands  he 
knew  were  needed. 

The  Dardanelles  expedition  was  not  re- 
quired to  prove  the  courage  of  the  French 
and  British.  Beyond  furnishing  fresh  evi- 
dence of  that,  it  has  been  a  failure.  And  in 
refusing  to  sacrifice  the  lives  of  his  subjects 
the  military  judgment  of  Constantine  has 
been  vindicated.  He  was  willing  to  attack 
Turkey  through  Kavalla  and  Thrace,  be- 
cause by  that  route  he  presented  an  armed 
front  to  Bulgaria.  But,  as  he  pointed  out, 
if  he  sent  his  army  to  the  Dardanelles,  he 
left  Kavalla  at  the  mercy  of  his  enemy. 
In  his  mistrust  of  Bulgaria  he  has  certainly 
been  justified. 

Greece  is  not  at  war,  but  in  outward  ap- 
pearance she  is  as  firmly  on  a  war  footing 
as  is  France  or  Italy.  A  man  out  of  uniform 

107 


WHY  KING  CONSTANTINE 

is  conspicuous,  and  all  day  regiments  pass 
through  the  streets  carrying  the  campaign  kit 
and  followed  by  the  medical  corps,  the  moun- 
tain batteries,  and  the  transport  wagons. 
In  the  streets  the  crowds  are  cheering  Denys 
Cochin,  the  special  ambassador  from  France. 
He  makes  speeches  to  them  from  the  bal- 
cony of  our  hotel,  and  the  mob  wave  flags 
and  shout  "Zito!  Zito!" 

In  a  play  Colonel  Savage  produced,  I 
once  wrote  the  same  scene  and  placed  it  in 
the  same  hotel  in  Athens.  In  Athens  the 
local  color  was  superior  to  ours,  but  George 
Marion  stage-managed  the  mob  better  than 
did  the  Athens  police. 

Athens  is  in  a  perplexed  state  of  mind. 
She  does  not  know  if  she  wants  to  go  to  war 
or  wants  peace.  She  does  not  know  if  she 
should  go  to  war,  on  which  side  she  wants 
to  fight.  People  tell  you  frankly  that  their 
heart-beats  are  with  France,  but  that  they 
are  afraid  of  Germany. 

"If  Germany  wins,"  they  asked,  "what 
1 08 


IS  NEUTRAL 

will  become  of  us?  The  Germans  already 
are  in  Monastir,  twenty  miles  from  our 
border.  They  have  driven  the  Serbians,  the 
French,  and  the  British  out  of  Serbia,  and 
they  will  make  our  King  a  German  vassal." 

"Then,  why  don't  you  go  out  and  fight  for 
your  King?"  I  asked. 

"He  won't  let  us,"  they  said. 

When  the  army  of  a  country  is  mobilized, 
it  is  hard  to  understand  that  that  country 
is  neutral.  You  expect  to  see  evidences  of 
her  partisanship  for  one  cause  or  the  other. 
But  in  Athens,  from  a  shop-window  point 
of  view,  both  the  Allies  and  the  Germans  are 
equally  supported.  There  are  just  as  many 
pictures  of  the  German  generals  as  of  Joffre, 
as  many  post-cards  of  the  German  Emperor 
as  of  King  George  and  King  Albert.  After 
Paris,  it  is  a  shock  to  see  German  books, 
portraits  of  German  statesmen,  composers, 
and  musicians.  In  one  shop-window  con- 
spicuously featured,  evidently  with  intent, 
is  an  engraving  showing  Napoleon  III  sur- 

109 


WHY  KING  CONSTANTINE  IS  NEUTRAL 

rendering  to  Bismarck.  In  the  principal 
bookstore,  books  in  German  on  German  vic- 
tories, and  English  and  French  pamphlets  on 
German  atrocities  stand  shoulder  to  shoul- 
der. The  choice  is  with  you. 

Meanwhile,  on  every  hand  are  the  signs 
of  a  nation  on  the  brink  of  war;  of  armies 
of  men  withdrawn  from  trades,  professions, 
homes;  of  men  marching  and  drilling  in 
squads,  companies,  brigades.  At  times  the 
columns  are  so  long  that  in  passing  the  win- 
dows of  the  hotel  they  take  an  hour.  All 
these  fighting  men  must  be  fed,  clothed, 
paid,  and  while  they  are  waiting  to  fight, 
whether  they  are  goatherds  or  piano-tuners 
or  shopkeepers,  their  business  is  going  to 
the  devil. 


no 


CHAPTER  VI 
WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

SALONIKA,  December,  1915. 

WE  left  Athens  on  the  first  ship  that  was 
listed  for  Salonika.  She  was  a  strange 
ship.  During  many  years  on  various  vessels 
in  various  seas,  she  was  the  most  remarkable. 
Every  Greek  loves  to  gamble;  but  for  'some 
reason,  or  for  that  very  reason,  for  him  to 
gamble  on  shore  is  by  law  made  difficult. 
In  consequence,  as  soon  as  the  Hermoupolis 
raised  anchor  she  became  a  floating  gambling- 
hell.  There  were  twenty-four  first-class  pas- 
sengers who  were  in  every  way  first  class; 
Greek  officers,  bankers,  merchants,  and  dep- 
uties, and  their  time  on  the  steamer  from 
eleven  each  morning  until  four  the  next 
morning  was  spent  in  dealing  baccarat. 

When  the  stewards,  who  were  among  the 
few  persons  on  board  who  did  not  play, 

in 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

tried  to  spread  a  table-cloth  and  serve  food, 
they  were  indignantly  rebuked.  The  most 
untiring  players  were  the  captain  and  the 
ship's  officers.  Whenever  they  found  that 
navigating  their  ship  interfered  with  their 
baccarat  we  came  to  anchor.  We  should 
have  reached  Salonika  in  a  day  and  a  half. 
We  arrived  after  four  days.  And  all  of  each 
day  and  half  of  each  night  we  were  anchored 
in  midstream  while  the  captain  took  the 
bank.  The  hills  of  Eubcea  and  the  main- 
land formed  a  giant  funnel  of  snow,  through 
which  the  wind  roared.  It  swept  the  ship 
from  bow  to  stern,  turning  to  ice  the  wood- 
work, the  velvet  cushions,  even  the  blankets. 
Fortunately,  it  was  not  the  kind  of  a  ship 
that  supplied  sheets,  or  we  would  have  frozen 
in  our  berths.  Outside  of  the  engine-room, 
which  was  aft,  there  was  no  heat  of  any 
sort,  but  undaunted,  the  gamblers,  in  caps 
and  fur  coats,  their  breath  rising  in  icy  clouds, 
crouched  around  the  table,  their  frozen  fin- 
gers fumbling  with  the  cards. 

112 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

There  were  two  charming  Italians  on  board, 
a  father  and  son  —  the  father  absurdly  youth- 
ful, the  boy  incredibly  wise.  They  operate  a 
chain  of  banks  through  the  Levant.  They 
watched  the  game  but  did  not  play.  The 
father  explained  this  to  me.  "My  dear  son 
is  a  born  gambler,"  he  said.  "So,  in  order 
that  I  may  set  him  an  example,  I  will  not 
play  until  after  he  has  gone  to  sleep." 

Later,  the  son  also  explained.  "My  dear 
father,"  he  whispered,  "is  an  inveterate 
gambler.  So,  in  order  that  I  may  reprove 
him,  I  do  not  gamble.  At  least  not  until  he 
has  gone  to  bed."  At  midnight  I  left  them 
still  watching  each  other.  The  next  day  the 
son  said:  "I  got  no  sleep  last  night.  For 
some  reason,  my  dear  father  was  wakeful, 
and  it  was  four  o'clock  before  he  went  to  his 
cabin." 

When  we  reached  Volo  the  sun  was  shin- 
ing, and  as  the  day  was  so  beautiful,  the 
gamblers  remained  on  board  and  played  bac- 
carat. The  rest  of  us  explored  Volo.  On 

"3 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

the  mountains  above  it  the  Twenty-Four 
Villages  were  in  sight,  nestling  on  the  knees 
of  the  hills.  Their  red-tiled  houses  rose  one 
above  the  other,  the  roof  of  one  on  a  line 
with  the  door-step  of  the  neighbor  just  over- 
head. Their  white  walls,  for  Volo  is  a  sum- 
mer resort,  were  merged  in  the  masses  of 
snow,  but  in  Volo  itself  roses  were  still  bloom- 
ing, and  in  every  garden  the  trees  were  heavy 
with  oranges.  They  were  so  many  that  they 
hid  the  green  leaves,  and  against  the  walls  of 
purple,  blue,  and  Pompeian  red,  made  won- 
derful splashes  of  a  gorgeous  gold. 

Apparently  the  captain  was  winning,  for  he 
sent  word  he  would  not  sail  until  midnight, 
and  nine  of  his  passengers  dined  ashore. 
We  were  so  long  at  table,  not  because  the 
dinner  was  good,  but  because  there  was  a 
charcoal  brazier  in  the  room,  that  we  missed 
the  moving-pictures.  So  the  young  Italian 
banker  was  sent  to  bargain  for  a  second  and 
special  performance.  In  the  Levant  there 
always  is  one  man  who  works,  and  one  man 

114 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

who  manages  him.  A  sort  of  impresario. 
Even  the  boatmen  and  bootblacks  have  a 
manager  who  arranges  the  financial  details. 
It  is  difficult  to  buy  a  newspaper  without 
dealing  through  a  third  party.  The  moving- 
picture  show,  being  of  importance,  had  seven 
managers.  The  young  Italian,  undismayed, 
faced  all  of  them.  He  wrangled  in  Greek, 
Turkish,  French,  and  Italian,  and  they  all 
talked  to  him  at  the  same  time.  Finally 
the  negotiations  came  to  an  end,  but  our 
ambassador  was  not  satisfied. 

"They  got  the  best  of  me,"  he  reported 
to  us.  "They  are  going  to  give  the  show  over 
again,  and  we  are  to  have  the  services  of  the 
pianist,  the  orchestra  of  five,  and  the  lady 
vocalist.  But  I  had  to  agree  to  pay  for  the 
combined  entertainment  entirely  too  much." 

"How  much?"  I  asked. 

"Eight  drachmas,"  he  said  apologetically, 
"or,  in  your  money,  one  dollar  and  fifty- 
two  cents." 

"Each?"  I  said. 

"5 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

He  exclaimed  in  horror:  "No,  divided 
among  the  nine  of  us !" 

No  wonder  Volo  is  a  popular  summer  re- 
sort, even  in  December. 

The  next  day,  after  sunset,  we  saw  the 
snow-capped  peak  of  Mount  Olympus  and 
the  lamps  of  a  curving  water-front,  the  long 
rows  of  green  air  ports  that  mark  the  French 
hospital  ships,  the  cargo  lights  turned  on  the 
red  crosses  painted  on  their  sides,  the  gray, 
grim  battleships  of  England,  France,  Italy, 
and  Greece,  and  a  bustling  torpedo-boat 
took  us  in  tow,  and  guided  us  through  the 
floating  mines  and  into  the  harbor  of  Sa- 
lonika. 

If  it  is  true  that  happy  are  the  people 
without  a  history,  then  Salonika  should  be 
thoroughly  miserable.  Some  people  make 
history;  others  have  history  thrust  upon 
them.  Ever  since  the  world  began  Salonika 
has  had  history  thrust  upon  her.  She  aspired 
only  to  be  a  great  trading  seaport.  She  was 
content  to  be  the  place  where  the  caravans 

116 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

from  the  Balkans  met  the  ships  from  the 
shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  Egypt,  and 
Asia  Minor.  Her  wharfs  were  counters  across 
which  they  could  swap  merchandise.  All 
she  asked  was  to  be  allowed  to  change  their 
money.  Instead  of  which,  when  any  two 
nations  of  the  Near  East  went  to  the  mat  to 
settle  their  troubles,  Salonika  was  the  mat. 
If  any  country  within  a  thousand-mile  ra- 
dius declared  war  on  any  other  country  in 
any  direction  whatsoever,  the  armies  of  both 
belligerents  clashed  at  Salonika.  They  not 
only  used  her  as  a  door-mat,  but  they  used 
her  hills  to  the  north  of  the  city  for  their 
battle-field.  In  the  fighting,  Salonika  took 
no  part.  She  merely  loaned  the  hills.  But 
she  knew,  whichever  side  won,  two  things 
would  happen  to  her:  She  would  pay  a 
forced  loan  and  subscribe  to  an  entirely 
new  religion.  Three  hundred  years  before 
Christ,  the  people  of  Salonika  worshipped 
the  mysterious  gods  who  had  their  earthly 
habitation  on  the  island  of  Thasos.  The 

117 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

Greeks  ejected  them,  and  erected  altars  to 
Apollo  and  Aphrodite,  the  Egyptians  fol- 
lowed and  taught  Salonika  to  fear  Serapis; 
then  came  Roman  gods  and  Roman  gen- 
erals; and  then  St.  Paul.  The  Jews  set  up 
synagogues,  the  Mohammedans  reared  min- 
arets, the  Crusaders  restored  the  cross,  the 
Tripolitans  restored  the  crescent,  the  Vene- 
tians re-restored  Christianity.  Romans, 
Greeks,  Byzantines,  Persians,  Franks,  Egyp- 
tians, and  Barbary  pirates,  all,  at  one  time 
or  another,  invaded  Salonika.  She  was  the 
butcher's  block  upon  which  they  carved 
history.  Some  ruled  her  only  for  months, 
others  for  years.  Of  the  monuments  to  the 
religions  forced  upon  her,  the  most  numerous 
to-day  are  the  synagogues  of  the  Jews  and 
the  mosques  of  the  Mohammedans.  It  was 
not  only  fighting  men  who  invaded  Salonika. 
Italy  can  count  her  great  earthquakes  on 
one  hand;  the  United  States  on  one  finger. 
But  a  resident  of  Salonika  does  not  speak 
of  the  "year  of  the  earthquake."  For  him, 

118 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

it  saves  time  to  name  the  years  when  there 
was  no  earthquake.  Each  of  those  years 
was  generally  "the  year  of  the  great  fire." 
If  it  wasn't  one  thing,  it  was  another.  If 
it  was  not  a  tidal  wave,  it  was  an  epidemic; 
if  it  was  not  a  war,  it  was  a  blizzard.  The 
trade  of  Asia  Minor  flows  into  Salonika  and 
with  it  carries  all  the  plagues  of  Egypt. 
Epidemics  of  cholera  in  Salonika  used  to 
be  as  common  as  yellow  fever  in  Guayaquil. 
Those  years  the  cholera  came  the  people 
abandoned  the  seaport  and  lived  on  the 
plains  north  of  Salonika,  in  tents.  If  the 
cholera  spared  them,  the  city  was  swept  by 
fire;  if  there  was  no  fire,  there  came  a  great 
frost.  Salonika  is  on  the  same  latitude  as 
Naples,  Madrid,  and  New  York;  and  New 
York  is  not  unacquainted  with  blizzards. 
Since  the  seventeenth  century,  last  winter 
was  said  to  be  the  coldest  Salonika  has  ever 
known.  I  was  not  there  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  but  am  willing  to  believe  that  last 
winter  was  the  coldest  since  then;  not 

119 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

only  to  believe  it,  but  to  swear  to  it.  Of 
the  frost  in  1657  the  Salonikans  boast  the 
cold  was  so  severe  that  to  get  wood  the 
people  destroyed  their  houses.  This  Decem- 
ber, when  on  the  English  and  French  front 
in  Serbia,  I  saw  soldiers  using  the  same  kind 
of  fire-wood.  They  knew  a  mud  house  that 
is  held  together  with  beams  and  rafters  can 
be  rebuilt,  but  that  you  cannot  rebuild  fro- 
zen toes  and  ringers. 

In  thrusting  history  upon  Salonika,  the 
last  few  years  have  been  especially  busy. 
They  gave  her  a  fire  that  destroyed  a  great 
part  of  the  city,  and  between  1911  and  1914 
two  cholera  epidemics,  the  Italian-Turkish 
War,  which,  as  Salonika  was  then  Turkish, 
robbed  her  of  hundreds  of  her  best  men,  the 
Balkan-Turkish  War,  and  the  Second  Bal- 
kan War.  In  this  Salonika  was  part  of  the 
spoils,  and  Greece  and  Bulgaria  fought  to 
possess  her.  The  Greeks  won,  and  during 
one  year  she  was  at  peace.  Then,  in  1914, 
the  Great  War  came,  and  Serbia  sent  out  an 

1 20 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

S.  O.  S.  call  to  her  Allies.  At  the  Darda- 
nelles, not  eighteen  hours  away,  the  French 
and  English  heard  the  call.  But  to  reach 
Serbia  by  the  shortest  route  they  must  dis- 
embark at  Salonika,  a  port  belonging  to 
Greece,  a  neutral  power;  and  in  moving  north 
from  Salonika  into  Serbia  they  must,  pass 
over  fifty  miles  of  neutral  Greek  territory. 
Venizelos,  prime  minister  of  Greece,  gave 
them  permission.  King  Constantine,  to  pre- 
serve his  neutrality,  disavowed  the  act  of 
his  representative,  and  Venizelos  resigned. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  the  Allies,  the 
disavowal  came  too  late.  As  soon  as  they 
had  received  permission  from  the  recognized 
Greek  Government,  they  started,  and,  leav- 
ing the  King  and  Venizelos  to  fight  it  out 
between  them,  landed  at  Salonika.  The  in- 
habitants received  them  calmly.  The  Greek 
officials,  the  colonel  commanding  the  Greek 
troops,  the  Greek  captain  of  the  port,  and 
the  Greek  collector  of  customs  may  have 
been  upset;  but  the  people  of  Salonika  re- 

121 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

mained  calm.  They  were  used  to  it.  For- 
eign troops  were  always  landing  at  Salonika. 
The  oldest  inhabitant  could  remember,  among 
others,  those  of  Alexander  the  Great,  Mark 
Antony,  Constantine,  the  Sultan  Murad, 
and  several  hundred  thousand  French  and 
English  who  over  their  armor  wore  a  red 
cross.  So  he  was  not  surprised  when,  after 
seven  hundred  years,  the  French  and  Eng- 
lish returned,  still  wearing  the  red  cross. 

One  of  the  greatest  assets  of  those  who 
live  in  a  seaport  city  is  a  view  of  their  har- 
bor. As  a  rule,  that  view  is  hidden  from 
them  by  zinc  sheds  on  the  wharfs  and  ware- 
houses. But  in  Salonika  the  water-front 
belongs  to  everybody.  To  the  north  it  en- 
closes the  harbor  in  a  great  half-moon  that 
from  tip  to  tip  measures  three  miles.  At 
the  western  tip  of  this  crescent  are  tucked 
away  the  wharfs  for  the  big  steamers,  the 
bonded  warehouses,  the  customs,  the  goods- 
sheds.  The  rest  of  the  water-front  is  open 
to  the  people  and  to  the  small  sailing  vessels. 

122 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

For  over  a  mile  it  is  bordered  by  a  stone 
quay,  with  stone  steps  leading  down  to  the 
rowboats.  Along  this  quay  runs  the  principal 
street,  and  on  the  side  of  it  that  faces  the 
harbor,  in  an  unbroken  row,  are  the  hotels, 
the  houses  of  the  rich  Turks  and  Jews,  clubs, 
restaurants,  cafes,  and  moving-picture  thea- 
tres. At  night,  when  these  places  are  blazing 
with  electric  lights,  the  curving  water-front 
is  as  bright  as  Broadway  —  but  Broadway 
with  one-half  of  the  street  in  darkness.  On 
the  dark  side  of  the  street,  to  the  quay,  are 
moored  hundreds  of  sailing  vessels.  Except 
that  they  are  painted  and  gilded  differently, 
they  look  like  sisters.  They  are  fat,  squat 
sisters  with  the  lines  of  half  a  cantaloupe. 
Each  has  a  single  mast  and  a  lateen-sail, 
like  the  Italian  felucca  and  the  sailing  boats 
of  the  Nile.  When  they  are  moored  to  the 
quay  and  the  sail  is  furled,  each  yard-arm, 
in  a  graceful,  sweeping  curve,  slants  down- 
ward. Against  the  sky,  in  wonderful  con- 
fusion, they  follow  the  edge  of  the  half -moon; 

123 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

the  masts  a  forest  of  dead  tree  trunks,  the 
slanting  yards  giant  quill  pens  dipping  into 
an  ink-well.  Their  hulls  are  rich  in  gilding 
and  in  colors  —  green,  red,  pink,  and  blue. 
At  night  the  electric  signs  of  a  moving-pic- 
ture palace  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  street 
illuminate  them  from  bow  to  stern.  It  is 
one  of  those  bizarre  contrasts  you  find  in 
the  Near  East.  On  one  side  of  the  quay  a 
perfectly  modern  hotel,  on  the  other  a  boat 
unloading  fish,  and  in  the  street  itself,  with 
French  automobiles  and  trolley-cars,  men 
who  still  are  beasts  of  burden,  who  know  no 
other  way  of  carrying  a  bale  or  a  box  than 
upon  their  shoulders.  In  Salonika  even  the 
trolley-car  is  not  without  its  contrast.  One 
of  our  "Jim  Crow"  street-cars  would  puzzle 
a  Turk.  He  would  not  understand  why  we 
separate  the  white  and  the  black  man.  But 
his  own  street-car  is  also  subdivided.  In 
each  there  are  four  seats  that  can  be  hidden 
by  a  curtain.  They  are  for  the  women  of 
his  harem. 

124 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

From  the  water-front  Salonika  climbs 
steadily  up-hill  to  the  row  of  hills  that  form 
her  third  and  last  line  of  defense.  On  the 
hill  upon  which  the  city  stands  are  the  walls 
and  citadel  built  in  the  fifteenth  century  by 
the  Turks,  and  in  which,  when  the  city  was 
invaded,  the  inhabitants  sought  refuge.  In 
aspect  it  is  mediaeval;  the  rest  of  the  city  is 
modern  and  Turkish.  The  streets  are  very 
narrow;  in  many  the  second  stories  overhang 
them  and  almost  touch,  and  against  the  sky- 
line rise  many  minarets.  But  the  Turks  do 
not  predominate.  They  have  their  quarter, 
and  so,  too,  have  the  French  and  the  Jews. 
In  numbers  the  Jews  exceed  all  the  others. 
They  form  fifty-six  per  cent  of  a  population 
composed  of  Greeks,  Turks,  Armenians,  Bul- 
garians, Egyptians,  French,  and  Italians. 
The  Jews  came  to  Salonika  the  year  America 
was  discovered.  To  avoid  the  Inquisition 
they  fled  from  Spain  and  Portugal  and  brought 
their  language  with  them;  and  after  five  hun- 
dred years  it  still  obtains.  It  has  been  called 

125 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

the  Esperanto  of  the  Salonikans.  For  the 
small  shopkeeper,  the  cabman,  the  waiter,  it 
is  the  common  tongue.  In  such  an  environ- 
ment it  sounds  most  curious.  When,  in  a 
Turkish  restaurant,  you  order  a  dinner  in 
the  same  words  you  last  used  in  Vera  Cruz, 
and  the  dinner  arrives,  it  seems  uncanny. 
But,  in  Salonika,  the  language  most  gen- 
erally spoken  is  French.  Among  so  many 
different  races  they  found,  if  they  hoped  to 
talk  business  —  and  a  Greek,  an  Armenian, 
and  a  Jew  are  not  averse  to  talking  busi- 
ness —  a  common  tongue  was  necessary.  So, 
all  those  who  are  educated,  even  most  sketch- 
ily,  speak  French.  The  greater  number  of 
newspapers  are  in  French;  and  notices,  ad- 
vertisements, and  official  announcements  are 
printed  in  that  language.  It  makes  life  in 
Salonika  difficult.  When  a  man  attacks  you 
in  Turkish,  Yiddish,  or  Greek,  and  you  can- 
not understand  him,  there  is  some  excuse, 
but  when  he  instantly  renews  the  attack  in 
both  French  and  Spanish,  it  is  disheartening. 

126 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

It  makes  you  regret  that  when  you  were  in 
college  the  only  foreign  language  you  studied 
was  football  signals. 

At  any  time,  without  the  added  presence  of 
100,000  Greeks  and  170,000  French  and  Eng- 
lish, Salonika  appears  overpopulated.  This 
is  partly  because  the  streets  are  narrow  and 
because  in  the  streets  everybody  gathers 
to  talk,  eat,  and  trade.  As  in  all  Turkish 
cities,  nearly  every  shop  is  an  "open  shop." 
The  counter  is  where  the  window  ought  to 
be,  and  opens  directly  upon  the  sidewalk. 
A  man  does  not  enter  the  door  of  a  shop,  he 
stands  on  the  sidewalk,  which  is  only  thirty- 
six  inches  wide,  and  makes  his  purchase 
through  the  window.  This  causes  a  crowd  to 
collect.  Partly  because  the  man  is  blocking 
the  sidewalk,  but  chiefly  because  there  is  a 
chance  that  something  may  be  bought  and 
paid  for.  In  normal  times,  if  Salonika  is 
ever  normal,  she  has  a  population  of  120,000, 
and  every  one  of  those  120,000  is  personally 
interested  in  any  one  else  who  engages,  or 

127 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

may  be  about  to  engage,  in  a  money  trans- 
action. In  New  York,  if  a  horse  falls  down 
there  is  at  once  an  audience  of  a  dozen  per- 
sons; in  Salonika  the  downfall  of  a  horse  is 
nobody's  business,  but  a  copper  coin  chang- 
ing hands  is  everybody's.  Of  this  local 
characteristic,  John  T.  McCutcheon  and  I 
made  a  careful  study;  and  the  result  of  our 
investigations  produced  certain  statistics.  If 
in  Salonika  you  buy  a  newspaper  from  a  news- 
boy, of  the  persons  passing,  two  will  stop;  if 
at  an  open  shop  you  buy  a  package  of  ciga- 
rettes, five  people  will  look  over  your  shoul- 
der; if  you  pay  your  cab-driver  his  fare,  you 
block  the  sidewalk;  and  if  you  try  to  change 
a  hundred-franc  note,  you  cause  a  riot.  In 
each  block  there  are  nearly  a  half  dozen 
money-changers;  they  sit  in  little  shops  as 
narrow  as  a  doorway,  and  in  front  of  them  is 
a  show-case  filled  with  all  the  moneys  of  the 
world.  It  is  not  alone  the  sight  of  your  hun- 
dred-franc note  that  enchants  the  crowd. 
That  collects  the  crowd;  but  what  holds  the 

128 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

crowd  is  that  it  knows  there  are  twenty  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  money,  all  current  in  Sa- 
lonika, into  which  your  note  can  be  changed. 
And  they  know  the  money-changer  knows 
that  and  that  you  do  not.  So  each  man  ad- 
vises you.  Not  because  he  does  not  want  to 
see  you  cheated  —  between  you  and  the 
money-changer  he  is  neutral  —  but  because 
he  can  no  more  keep  out  of  a  money  deal 
than  can  a  fly  pass  a  sugar-bowl. 

The  men  on  the  outskirts  of  the  crowd 
ask:  "What  does  he  offer?" 

The  lucky  ones  in  the  front-row  seats 
call  back:  "A  hundred  and  eighteen  drach- 
mas." The  rear  ranks  shout  with  indigna- 
tion. "It  is  robbery!"  "It  is  because  he 
changes  his  money  in  Venizelos  Street." 
"He  is  paying  the  money-changer's  rent." 
"In  the  Jewish  quarter  they  are  giving 
nineteen."  "He  is  too  lazy  to  walk  two 
miles  for  a  drachma."  "Then  let  him  go 
to  the  Greek,  Papanastassion." 

A  man  in  a  fez  whispers  to  you  impres- 
129 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

sively:  "La  livre  turque  est  encore  d'un 
usage  fort  courant.  La  valeur  au  pair  est 
de  francs  vingt-deux."  But  at  this  the 
Armenian  shrieks  violently.  He  scorns  Turk- 
ish money  and  advises  Italian  lire.  At  the 
idea  of  lire  the  crowd  howl.  They  hurl  at 
you  instead  francs,  piastres,  paras,  drachmas, 
lepta,  metalliks,  mejidis,  centimes,  and  Eng- 
lish shillings.  The  money-changer  argues 
with  them  gravely.  He  does  not  send  for 
the  police  to  drive  them  away.  He  does  not 
tell  them:  "This  is  none  of  your  business." 
He  knows  better.  In  Salonika,  it  is  their 
business. 

In  Salonika,  after  money,  the  thing  of 
most  consequence  is  conversation.  Men  who 
are  talking  always  have  the  right  of  way. 
When  two  men  of  Salonika  are  seized  with  a 
craving  for  conversation,  they  feel,  until 
that  craving  is  satisfied,  that  nothing  else  is 
important.  So,  when  the  ruling  passion  grips 
them,  no  matter  where  they  may  meet,  they 
stop  dead  in  their  tracks  and  talk.  If  possible 

130 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

they  select  the  spot,  where  by  standing  still 
they  can  cause  the  greatest  amount  of  in- 
convenience to  the  largest  number  of  people. 
They  do  not  withdraw  from  the  sidewalk. 
On  the  contrary,  as  best  suited  for  conversa- 
tion, they  prefer  the  middle  of  it,  the  door- 
way of  a  cafe,  or  the  centre  aisle  of  a  res- 
taurant. Of  the  people  who  wish  to  pass  they 
are  as  unconscious  as  a  Chinaman  smoking 
opium  is  unconscious  of  the  sightseers  from 
up-town.  That  they  are  talking  is  all  that 
counts.  They  feel  every  one  else  should  ap- 
preciate that.  Because  the  Allies  failed  to 
appreciate  it,  they  gained  a  reputation  for 
rudeness.  A  French  car,  flying  the  flag  of 
the  general,  a  squad  of  Tommies  under  arms, 
a  motor-cyclist  carrying  despatches  could 
not  understand  that  a  conversation  on  a 
street  crossing  was  a  sacred  ceremony.  So 
they  shouldered  the  conversationalists  aside 
or  splashed  them  with  mud.  It  was  in- 
tolerable. Had  they  stamped  into  a  mosque 
in  their  hobnailed  boots,  on  account  of  their 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

faulty  religious  training,  the  Salonikans  might 
have  excused  them.  But  that  a  man  driving 
an  ambulance  full  of  wounded  should  think 
he  had  the  right  to  disturb  a  conversation 
that  was  blocking  the  traffic  of  only  the 
entire  water-front  was  a  discourtesy  no  Sa- 
lonikan  could  comprehend. 

The  wonder  was  that  among  so  many 
mixed  races  the  clashes  were  so  few.  In 
one  place  seldom  have  people  of  so  many 
different  nationalities  met,  and  with  in- 
terests so  absolutely  opposed.  It  was  a 
situation  that  would  have  been  serious  had 
it  not  been  comic.  For  causing  it,  for  per- 
mitting it  to  continue,  Greece  was  respon- 
sible. Her  position  was  not  happy.  She  was 
between  the  Allies  and  the  Kaiser.  Than 
Greece,  no  country  is  more  vulnerable  from 
an  attack  by  sea;  and  if  she  offended  the 
Allies,  their  combined  fleets  at  Malta  and 
Lemnos  could  seize  all  her  little  islands  and 
seaports.  If  she  offended  the  Kaiser,  he 
would  send  the  Bulgarians  into  eastern 

132 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

Thrace  and  take  Salonika,  from  which  only 
two  years  before  Greece  had  dispossessed 
them.  Her  position  was  indeed  most  difficult. 
As  the  barber  at  the  Grande  Bretange  in 
Athens  told  me:  "It  makes  me  a  head- 
ache." 

On  many  a  better  head  than  his  it  had 
the  same  effect.  King  Constantine,  be- 
cause he  believed  it  was  best  for  Greece, 
wanted  to  keep  his  country  neutral.  But 
after  Venizelos  had  invited  the  Allies  to 
make  a  landing-place  and  a  base  for  their 
armies  at  Salonika,  Greece  was  no  longer 
neutral.  If  our  government  invited  170,- 
000  German  troops  to  land  at  Portland, 
and  through  Maine  invade  Canada,  our 
neutrality  would  be  lost.  The  neutrality 
of  Greece  was  lost,  but  Constantine  would 
not  see  that.  He  hoped,  although  170,000 
fighting  men  are  not  easy  to  hide,  that  the 
Kaiser  also  would  not  see  it.  It  was  a  very 
forlorn  hope.  The  Allies  also  cherished  a 
hope.  It  was  that  Constantine  not  only 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

would  look  the  other  way  while  they  slipped 
across  his  country,  but  would  cast  off  all 
pretense  of  neutrality  and  join  them.  So, 
as  far  as  was  possible,  they  avoided  giving 
offense.  They  assisted  him  in  his  pretense 
of  neutrality.  And  that  was  what  caused 
the  situation.  It  was  worthy  of  a  comic 
opera.  Before  the  return  of  the  allied  troops 
to  Salonika,  there  were  on  the  neutral  soil 
of  Greece,  divided  between  Salonika  and  the 
front  in  Serbia,  110,000  French  soldiers  and 
60,000  British.  Of  these,  100,000  were  in 
Salonika.  The  advanced  British  base  was 
at  Doiran  and  the  French  advanced  base  at 
Strumnitza  railroad-station.  In  both  places 
martial  law  existed.  But  at  the  main  base, 
at  Salonika,  both  armies  were  under  the  local 
authority  of  the  Greeks.  They  submitted  to 
the  authority  of  the  Greeks  because  they 
wanted  to  keep  up  the  superstition  that  Sa- 
lonika was  a  neutral  port,  when  the  mere 
fact  that  they  were  there  proved  she  was 
not.  It  was  a  situation  almost  unparalleled 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

in  military  history.  At  the  base  of  a  French 
and  of  a  British  army,  numbering  together 
170,000  men,  the  generals  who  commanded 
them  possessed  less  local  authority  than  one 
Greek  policeman.  They  were  guests.  They 
were  invited  guests  of  the  Greek,  and  they 
had  no  more  right  to  object  to  his  other  guests 
or  to  rearrange  his  house  rules  than  would 
you  have  the  right,  when  a  guest  in  a  strange 
club,  to  reprimand  the  servants.  The  Allies 
had  in  the  streets  military  police;  but  they 
held  authority  over  only  soldiers  of  their 
own  country;  they  could  not  interfere  with 
a  Greek  soldier,  or  with  a  civilian  of  any 
nation,  and  even  the  provost  guard  sent  out 
at  night  was  composed  not  alone  of  French 
and  English  but  of  an  equal  number  of  Greeks. 
I  often  wondered  in  what  language  they  is- 
sued commands.  As  an  instance  of  how 
strictly  the  Allies  recognized  the  authority 
of  the  neutral  Greek,  and  how  jealously  he 
guarded  it,  there  was  the  case  of  the  Entente 
Cafe.  The  proprietor  of  the  Entente  Cafe 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

was  a  Greek.  A  British  soldier  was  ill- 
treated  in  his  cafe,  and  by  the  British  com- 
manding officer  the  place,  so  far  as  British 
soldiers  and  sailors  were  concerned,  was 
declared  "out  of  bounds."  A  notice  to  that 
effect  was  hung  in  the  window.  But  it  was 
a  Greek  policeman  who  placed  it  there. 

In  matters  much  more  important,  the 
fact  that  the  Allies  were  in  a  neutral  seaport 
greatly  embarrassed  them.  They  were  not 
allowed  to  censor  news  despatches  nor  to 
examine  the  passports  of  those  who  arrived 
and  departed.  The  question  of  the  censor- 
ship was  not  so  serious  as  it  might  appear. 
General  Sarrail  explained  to  the  correspon- 
dents what  might  and  what  might  not  be 
sent,  and  though  what  we  wrote  was  not 
read  in  Salonika  by  a  French  or  British  cen- 
sor, General  Sarrail  knew  it  would  be  read 
by  censors  of  the  Allies  at  Malta,  Rome, 
Paris,  and  London.  Any  news  despatch 
that,  unscathed,  ran  that  gantlet,  while  it 
might  not  help  the  Allies  certainly  would 

136 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

not  harm  them.  One  cablegram  of  three 
hundred  words,  sent  by  an  American  corre- 
spondent, after  it  had  been  blue-pencilled 
by  the  Greek  censors  in  Salonika  and  Athens, 
and  by  the  four  allied  censors,  arrived  at 
his  London  office  consisting  entirely  of 
"ands"  and  "thes."  So,  if  not  from  their 
censors,  at  least  from  the  correspondents, 
the  Allies  were  protected.  But  against  the 
really  serious  danger  of  spies  they  were  help- 
less. In  New  York  the  water-fronts  are 
guarded.  Unless  he  is  known,  no  one  can 
set  foot  upon  a  wharf.  Night  and  day, 
against  spies  and  German  military  attaches 
bearing  explosive  bombs,  steamers  loading 
munitions  are  surrounded  by  police,  watch- 
men, and  detectives.  But  in  Salonika  the 
wharfs  were  as  free  to  any  one  as  a  park 
bench,  and  the  quay  supplied  every  spy,  Ger- 
man, Bulgarian,  Turk  or  Austrian,  with  an 
uninterrupted  view.  To  suppose  spies  did 
not  avail  themselves  of  this  opportunity  is  to 
insult  their  intelligence.  They  swarmed.  In 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

solid  formation  spies  lined  the  quay.  For 
every  landing-party  of  bluejackets  they  formed 
a  committee  of  welcome.  Of  every  man,  gun, 
horse,  and  box  of  ammunition  that  came 
ashore  they  kept  tally.  On  one  side  of  the 
wharf  stood  "P.  N.  T.  O.,"  principal  naval 
transport  officer,  in  gold  braid,  ribbons, 
and  armlet,  keeping  an  eye  on  every  box  of 
shell,  gun-carriage,  and  caisson  that  was 
swung  from  a  transport,  and  twenty  feet 
from  him,  and  keeping  count  with  him, 
would  be  two  dozen  spies.  And,  to  make  it 
worse,  the  P.  N.  T.  O.  knew  they  were  Spies. 
The  cold  was  intense  and  wood  so  scarce 
that  to  obtain  it  men  used  to  row  out  two 
miles  and  collect  the  boxes  thrown  over- 
board from  the  transports  and  battleships. 
Half  of  these  men  had  but  the  slightest  in- 
terest in  kindling-wood;  they  were  learning 
the  position  of  each  battleship,  counting  her 
guns,  noting  their  caliber,  counting  the  men 
crowding  the  rails  of  the  transports,  reading 
the  insignia  on  their  shoulder-straps,  and, 

138 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

as  commands  and  orders  were  wigwagged 
from  ship  to  ship,  writing  them  down.  Other 
spies  took  the  trouble  to  disguise  themselves 
in  rags  and  turbans,  and,  mixing  with  the 
Tommies,  sold  them  sweetmeats,  fruit,  and 
cigarettes.  The  spy  told  the  Tommy  he  was 
his  ally,  a  Serbian  refugee;  and  Tommy,  or 
the  poilu,  to  whom  Bulgarians,  Turks,  and 
Serbians  all  look  alike,  received  him  as  a 
comrade. 

"You  had  a  rough  passage  from  Mar- 
seilles," ventures  the  spy.  "We  come  from 
the  peninsula,"  says  Tommy.  "Three  thou- 
sand of  you  on  such  a  little  ship!"  exclaims 
the  sympathetic  Serbian.  "You  must  have 
been  crowded!"  "Crowded  as  hell,"  cor- 
rects Tommy,  "because  there  are  five  thou- 
sand of  us."  Over  these  common  spies  were 
master  spies,  Turkish  and  German  officers 
from  Berlin  and  Constantinople.  They  sat 
in  the  same  restaurants  with  the  French  and 
English  officers.  They  were  in  mufti,  but 
had  they  appeared  in  uniform,  while  it  might 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

have  led  to  a  riot,  in  this  neutral  port  they 
would  have  been  entirely  within  their  rights. 
The  clearing-houses  for  the  spies  were  the 
consulates  of  Austria,  Turkey,  and  Ger- 
many. From  there  what  information  the 
spies  turned  in  was  forwarded  to  the  front. 
The  Allies  were  helpless  to  prevent.  How 
helpless  may  be  judged  from  these  quota- 
tions that  are  translated  from  Phos,  a  Greek 
newspaper  published  daily  in  Salonika,  and 
which  any  one  could  buy  in  the  streets. 
"The  English  and  French  forces  mean  to 
retreat.  Yesterday  six  trains  of  two  hun- 
dred and  forty  wagons  came  from  the  front 
with  munitions."  "The  Allies'  first  line  of 
defense  will  be  at  Soulowo,  Doiran,  Goume- 
nitz.  At  Topsin  and  Zachouna  intrenchments 
have  not  yet  been  started,  but  strong  posi- 
tions have  been  taken  up  at  Chortiatis  and 
Nihor."  "Yesterday  the  landing  of  British 
reinforcements  continued,  amounting  to  15,- 
000.  The  guns  and  munitions  were  out  of 
date.  The  position  of  the  Allies'  battleships 

140 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

has  been  changed.  They  are  now  inside  the 
harbor."  The  most  exacting  German  Gen- 
eral Staff  could  not  ask  for  better  service 
than  that!  When  the  Allies  retreated  from 
Serbia  into  Salonika  every  one  expected  the 
enemy  would  pursue;  and  thousands  fled 
from  the  city.  But  the  Germans  did  not 
pursue,  and  the  reason  may  have  been  be- 
cause their  spies  kept  them  so  well  informed. 
If  you  hold  four  knaves  and,  by  stealing  a 
look  at  your  opponent's  hand,  see  he  has 
four  kings,  to  attempt  to  fight  him  would 
be  suicide.  So,  in  the  end,  the  very  freedom 
with  which  the  spies  moved  about  Salonika 
may  have  been  for  good.  They  may  have 
prevented  the  loss  of  many  lives. 

During  these  strenuous  days  the  position 
of  the  Greek  army  in  Salonika  was  most 
difficult.  There  were  of  their  soldiers  nearly 
as  many  as  there  were  French  and  British 
combined,  and  they  resented  the  presence 
of  the  foreigners  in  their  new  city  and  they 
showed  it.  But  they  could  not  show  it  in 

141 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

such  a  way  as  to  give  offense,  because  they 
did  not  know  but  that  on  the  morrow  with 
the  Allies  they  would  be  fighting  shoulder 
to  shoulder.  And  then,  again,  they  did  not 
know  but  that  on  the  morrow  they  might  be 
with  the  Germans  and  fighting  against  the 
Allies,  gun  to  gun. 

Not  knowing  just  how  they  stood  with 
anybody,  and  to  show  they  resented  the 
invasion  of  their  newly  won  country  by  the 
Allies,  the  Greeks  tried  to  keep  proudly 
aloof.  In  this  they  failed.  For  any  one  to 
flock  by  himself  in  Salonika  was  impossible. 
In  a  long  experience  of  cities  swamped  by 
conventions,  inaugurations,  and  coronations, 
of  all  I  ever  saw,  Salonika  was  the  most  deeply 
submerged.  During  the  Japanese-Russian 
War  the  Japanese  told  the  correspondents 
there  were  no  horses  in  Corea,  and  that  be- 
fore leaving  Japan  each  should  supply  him- 
self with  one.  Dinwiddie  refused  to  obey. 
The  Japanese  warned  him  if  he  did  not  take 
a  pony  with  him  he  would  be  forced  to  ac- 
company the  army  on  foot. 

142 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

"There  will  always,"  replied  Dinwiddie, 
"be  a  pony  in  Corea  for  Dinwiddie."  It 
became  a  famous  saying.  When  the  alarmist 
tells  you  all  the  rooms  in  all  the  hotels  are 
engaged;  that  people  are  sleeping  on  cots 
and  billiard-tables;  that  there  are  no  front- 
row  seats  for  the  Follies,  no  berths  in  any 
cabin  of  any  steamer,  remind  yourself  that 
there  is  always  a  pony  in  Corea  for  Dinwid- 
die. The  rule  is  that  the  hotel  clerk  discovers 
a  vacant  room,  a  ticket  speculator  disgorges 
a  front-row  seat,  and  the  ship's  doctor  sells 
you  a  berth  in  the  sick  bay.  But  in  Salonika 
the  rule  failed.  As  already  explained,  Sa- 
lonika always  is  overcrowded.  Suddenly, 
added  to  her  120,000  peoples,  came  110,000 
Greek  soldiers,  their  officers,  and  with  many 
of  them  their  families,  60,000  British  soldiers 
and  sailors,  110,000  French  soldiers  and 
sailors,  and  no  one  knows  how  many  thou- 
sand Serbian  soldiers  and  refugees,  both  the 
rich  and  the  destitute.  The  population  was 
quadrupled;  and  four  into  one  you  can't. 
Four  men  cannot  with  comfort  occupy  a 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

cot  built  for  one,  four  men  at  the  same  time 
cannot  sit  on  the  same  chair  in  a  restaurant, 

• 

four  men  cannot  stand  on  that  spot  in  the 
street  where  previously  there  was  not  room 
enough  for  one.  Still  less  possible  is  it  for 
three  military  motor-trucks  to  occupy  the 
space  in  the  street  originally  intended  for 
one  small  donkey.  Of  Salonika,  a  local 
French  author  has  written:  "When  one  en- 
ters the  city  he  is  conscious  of  a  cry,  con- 
tinuous and  piercing.  A  cry  unique  and 
monotonous,  always  resembling  itself.  It  is 
the  clamor  of  Salonika/' 

Every  one  who  has  visited  the  East,  where 
every  one  lives  in  the  streets,  knows  the 
sound.  It  is  like  the  murmur  of  a  stage  mob. 
Imagine,  then,  that  "clamor  of  Salonika" 
increased  by  the  rumble  and  roar  over  the 
huge  paving-stones  of  thousands  of  giant 
motor-trucks;  by  the  beat  of  the  iron-shod 
hoofs  of  cavalry,  the  iron-shod  boots  of 
men  marching  in  squads,  companies,  regi- 
ments, the  shrieks  of  peasants  herding  flocks 

144 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

of  sheep,  goats,  turkeys,  cattle;  the  shouts 
of  bootblacks,  boatmen,  sweetmeat  venders; 
newsboys  crying  the  names  of  Greek  papers 
that  sound  like  "Hi  hippi  hippi  hi,"  "Teyang 
Teyang  Teyah";  by  the  tin  horns  of  the 
trolley-cars,  the  sirens  of  automobiles,  the 
warning  whistles  of  steamers,  of  steam- 
launches,  of  donkey-engines;  the  creaking 
of  cordage  and  chains  on  cargo-hoists,  and 
by  the  voices  of  300,000  men  speaking  dif- 
ferent languages,  and  each,  that  he  may  be 
heard  above  it,  adding  to  the  tumult.  For 
once  the  alarmist  was  right.  There  were 
no  rooms  in  any  hotel.  Early  in  the  rush 
John  McCutcheon,  William  G.  Shepherd, 
John  Bass,  and  James  Hare  had  taken  the 
quarters  left  vacant  by  the  Austrian  Club  in 
the  Hotel  Olympus.  The  room  was  vast 
and  overlooked  the  principal  square  of  the 
city,  where  every  Salonikan  met  to  talk,  and 
the  only  landing-place  on  the  quay.  From 
the  balcony  you  could  photograph,  as  it 
made  fast,  not  forty  feet  from  you,  every 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

cutter,  gig,  and  launch  of  every  war-ship. 
The  late  Austrian  Club  became  the  head- 
quarters for  lost  and  strayed  Americans. 
For  four  nights,  before  I  secured  a  room  to 
myself  by  buying  the  hotel,  I  slept  on  the 
sofa.  It  was  two  feet  too  short,  but  I  was 
very  fortunate. 

Outside,  in  the  open  halls  on  cots,  were 
English,  French,  Greek,  and  Serbian  officers. 
The  place  looked  like  a  military  hospital. 
The  main  salon,  gilded  and  bemirrored,  had 
lost  its  identity.  At  the  end  overlooking  the 
water-front  were  Serbian  ladies  taking  tea; 
in  the  centre  of  the  salon  at  the  piano  a  little 
Greek  girl  taking  a  music  lesson;  and  at  the 
other  end,  on  cots,  British  officers  from  the 
trenches  and  Serbian  officers  who  had  escaped 
through  the  snows  of  Albania,  their  muddy 
boots,  uniforms,  and  swords  flung  on  the 
floor,  slept  the  drugged  sleep  of  exhaustion. 

Meals  were  a  continuous  performance  and 
interlocked.  Except  at  midnight,  dining- 
rooms,  cafes,  and  restaurants  were  never 

146 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

aired,  never  swept,  never  empty.  The  dishes 
were  seldom  washed;  the  waiters  —  never. 
People  succeeded  each  other  at  table  in  re- 
lays, one  group  giving  their  order  while  the 
other  was  paying  the  bill.  To  prepare  a 
table,  a  waiter  with  a  napkin  swept  every- 
thing on  it  to  the  floor.  War  prices  prevailed. 
Even  the  necessities  of  life  were  taxed.  For 
a  sixpenny  tin  of  English  pipe  tobacco  I  paid 
two  dollars,  and  Scotch  whiskey  rose  from 
four  francs  a  bottle  to  fifteen.  On  even  a 
letter  of  credit  it  was  next  to  impossible  to 
obtain  money,  and  the  man  who  arrived 
without  money  in  his  belt  walked  the  water- 
front. The  refugees  from  Serbia  who  were 
glad  they  had  escaped  with  their  lives  were 
able  to  sleep  and  eat  only  through  the  charity 
of  others.  Not  only  the  peasants,  but  young 
girls  and  women  of  the  rich,  and  more  care- 
fully nurtured  class  of  Serbians  were  glad  to 
sleep  on  the  ground  under  tents. 

The  scenes  in  the  streets  presented  the 
most  curious  contrasts.     It  was  the  East 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

clashing  with  the  West,  and  the  uniforms  of 
four  armies  —  British,  French,  Greek,  and 
Serbian  —  and  of  the  navies  of  Italy,  Russia, 
Greece,  England,  and  France  contrasted  with 
the  dress  of  civilians  of  every  nation.  There 
were  the  officers  of  Greece  and  Serbia  in 
smart  uniforms  of  many  colors  —  blue,  green, 
gray  —  with  much  gold  and  silver  braid,  and 
wearing  swords  which  in  this  war  are  ob- 
solete; there  were  English  officers,  generals 
of  many  wars,  and  red-cheeked  boys  from 
Eton,  clad  in  businesslike  khaki,  with  huge, 
cape-like  collars  of  red  fox  or  wolf  skin,  and 
carrying,  in  place  of  the  sword,  a  hunting- 
crop  or  a  walking-stick;  there  were  English 
bluejackets  and  marines,  Scotch  Highlanders, 
who  were  as  much  intrigued  over  the  petti- 
coats of  the  Evzones  as  were  the  Greeks  as- 
tonished at  their  bare  legs;  there  were  French 
poilus  wearing  the  steel  casque,  French  avia- 
tors in  short,  shaggy  fur  coats  that  gave  them 
the  look  of  a  grizzly  bear  balancing  on  his 
hind  legs;  there  were  Jews  in  gabardines, 

148 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

old  men  with  the  noble  faces  of  Sargent's 
apostles,  robed  exactly  as  was  Irving  as 
Shylock;  there  were  the  Jewish  married 
women  in  sleeveless  cloaks  of  green  silk 
trimmed  with  rich  fur,  and  each  wearing  on 
her  head  a  cushion  of  green  that  hung  below 
her  shoulders;  there  were  Greek  priests  with 
matted  hair  reaching  to  the  waist,  and  Turk- 
ish women,  their  faces  hidden  in  yashmaks, 
who  looked  through  them  with  horror,  or 
envy,  at  the  English,  Scotch,  and  American 
nurses,  with  their  cheeks  bronzed  by  snow, 
sleet,  and  sun,  wearing  men's  hobnailed  boots, 
men's  blouses,  and,  across  their  breasts,  war 
medals  for  valor. 

All  day  long  these  people  of  all  races,  with 
conflicting  purposes,  speaking,  or  shrieking, 
in  a  dozen  different  tongues,  pushed,  shoved, 
and  shouldered.  At  night,  while  the  bedlam 
of  sounds  grew  less,  the  picture  became 
more  wonderful.  The  lamps  of  automobiles 
would  suddenly  pierce  the  blackness,  or  the 
blazing  doors  of  a  cinema  would  show  in 

149 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

the  dark  street,  the  vast  crowd  pushing, 
slipping,  struggling  for  a  foothold  on  the 
muddy  stones.  In  the  circle  of  light  cast  by 
the  automobiles,  out  of  the  mass  a  single 
face  would  flash  —  a  face  burned  by  the  sun 
of  the  Dardanelles  or  frost-bitten  by  the 
snows  of  the  Balkans.  Above  it  might  be 
the  gold  visor  and  scarlet  band  of  a  "Brass 
Hat,"  staff-officer,  the  fur  kepi  of  a  Serbian 
refugee,  the  steel  helmet  of  a  French  soldier, 
the  "bonnet"  of  a  Highlander,  the  white 
cap  of  a  navy  officer,  the  tassel  of  an  Evzone, 
a  red  fez,  a  turban  of  rags. 

This  lasted  until  the  Allies  retreated  upon 
Salonika,  and  the  Greek  army,  to  give  them 
a  clear  field  in  which  to  fight,  withdrew, 
100,000  of  them  in  two  days,  carrying  with 
them  tens  of  thousands  of  civilians  —  those 
who  were  pro-Germans,  and  Greeks,  Jews, 
and  Serbians.  The  civilians  were  flying  be- 
fore the  expected  advance  of  the  Bulgar- 
German  forces.  But  the  Central  Powers, 
possibly  well  informed  by  their  spies,  did  not 

150 


WITH  THE  ALLIES  IN  SALONIKA 

attack.  That  was  several  months  ago,  and 
at  this  writing  they  have  not  yet  attacked. 
What  one  man  saw  of  the  approaches  to 
Salonika  from  the  north  leads  him  to  think 
that  the  longer  the  attack  of  the  Bulgar- 
Germans  is  postponed  the  better  it  will  be  — 
for  the  Bulgar-Germans. 


CHAPTER  VII 
TWO  BOYS  AGAINST  AN  ARMY 

SALONIKA,  December,  1915. 

ON  the  day  the  retreat  began  from  Kri- 
volak,  General  Sarrail,  commanding  the 
Allies  in  Serbia,  gave  us  permission  to  visit 
the  French  and  English  front.  The  French 
advanced  position,  and  a  large  amount  of 
ammunition,  six  hundred  shells  to  each  gun, 
were  then  at  Krivolak,  and  the  English  base 
at  Doiran.  We  left  the  train  at  Doiran,  but 
our  French  "guide"  had  not  informed  the 
English  a  "mission  militaire"  was  descend- 
ing upon  them,  and  in  consequence  at  Doiran 
there  were  no  conveyances  to  meet  us.  So, 
a  charming  English  captain  commandeered 
for  us  a  vast  motor-truck.  Stretched  above 
it  were  ribs  to  support  a  canvas  top,  and  by 
clinging  to  these,  as  at  home  on  the  Elevated 

152 


TWO  BOYS  AGAINST  AN  ARMY 

we  hang  to  a  strap,  we  managed  to  avoid 
being  bumped  out  into  the  road. 

The  English  captain,  who -seemed  to  have 
nothing  else  on  his  hands,  volunteered  to 
act  as  our  escort,  and  on  a  splendid  hunter 
galloped  ahead  of  and  at  the  side  of  the 
lorry,  and,  much  like  a  conductor  on  a  sight- 
seeing car,  pointed  out  the  objects  of  interest. 
When  not  explaining  he  was  absent-mindedly 
jumping  his  horse  over  swollen  streams, 
ravines,  and  fallen  walls.  We  found  him 
much  more  interesting  to  watch  than  the 
scenery. 

The  scenery  was  desolate  and  bleak.  It 
consisted  of  hills  that  opened  into  other 
hills,  from  the  summit  of  which  more  hills 
stretched  to  a  horizon  entirely  of  mountains. 
They  did  not  form  ridges  but,  like  men  in 
a  crowd,  shouldered  into  one  another.  They 
were  of  a  soft  rock  and  covered  with  snow, 
above  which  to  the  height  of  your  waist 
rose  scrub  pine-trees  and  bushes  of  holly. 
The  rain  and  snow  that  ran  down  their 


TWO  BOYS  AGAINST  AN  ARMY 

slopes  had  turned  the  land  into  a  sea  of  mud, 
and  had  swamped  the  stone  roads.  In  walk- 
ing, for  each  step  you  took  forward  you 
skidded  and  slid  several  yards  back.  If  you 
had  an  hour  to  spare  you  had  time  for  a  ten- 
minute  walk. 

In  our  motor-truck  we  circled  Lake  Doiran, 
and  a  mile  from  the  station  came  to  a  stone 
obelisk.  When  we  passed  it  our  guide  on 
horseback  shouted  to  us  that  we  had  crossed 
the  boundary  from  Greece,  and  were  now 
in  Serbia.  The  lake  is  five  miles  wide  and 
landlocked,  and  the  road  kept  close  to  the 
water's  edge.  It  led  us  through  little  mud 
villages  with  houses  of  mud  and  wattle,  and 
some  of  stone  with  tiled  roofs  and  rafters, 
and  beams  showing  through  the  cement. 
The  second  story  projected  like  those  of 
the  Spanish  blockhouses  in  Cuba,  and  the 
log  forts  from  which,  in  the  days  when  there 
were  no  hyphenated  Americans,  our  fore- 
fathers fought  the  Indians. 

Except  for  some  fishermen,  the  Serbians 


TWO  BOYS  AGAINST  AN  ARMY 

had  abandoned  these  villages,  and  they  were 
occupied  by  English  army  service  men  and 
infantry.  The  "front,"  which  was  hidden 
away  among  the  jumble  of  hills,  seemed, 
when  we  reached  it,  to  consist  entirely  of 
artillery.  All  along  the  road  the  Tommies 
were  waging  a  hopeless  war  against  the  mud, 
shovelling  it  off  the  stone  road  to  keep  the 
many  motor-trucks  from  skidding  over  a 
precipice,  or  against  the  cold  making  shelters 
of  it,  or  washing  it  out  of  their  uniforms  and 
off  their  persons. 

Shivering  from  ears  to  heels  and  with 
teeth  rattling,  for  they  had  come  from  the 
Dardanelles,  they  stood  stripped  to  the  waist 
scrubbing  their  sun-tanned  chests  and  shoul- 
ders with  ice-water.  It  was  a  spectacle  that 
inspired  confidence.  When  a  man  is  so  keen 
after  water  to  wash  in  that  he  will  kick  the 
top  off  a  frozen  lake  to  get  it,  a  little  thing 
like  a  barb-wire  entanglement  will  not  halt 
him. 

The  cold  of  those  hills  was  like  no  cold  I 


TWO  BOYS  AGAINST  AN  ARMY 

had  ever  felt.  Officers  who  had  hunted  in 
northern  Russia,  in  the  Himalayas,  in  Alaska, 
assured  us  that  never  had  they  so  suffered. 
The  men  we  passed,  who  were  in  the  am- 
bulances, were  down  either  with  pneumonia 
or  frost-bite.  Many  had  lost  toes  and  fingers. 
And  it  was  not  because  they  were  not  warmly 
clad.* 

Last  winter  in  France  had  taught  the  war 
office  how  to  dress  the  part;  but  nothing 
had  prepared  them  for  the  cold  of  the  Bal- 
kans. And  to  add  to  their  distress,  for  it 
was  all  of  that,  there  was  no  fire-wood. 
The  hills  were  bare  of  trees,  and  such  cold 
as  they  endured  could  not  be  fought  with 
green  twigs. 

It  was  not  the  brisk,  invigorating  cold 

*  It  has  been  charged  that  the  British  troops  in  the  Bal- 
kans wore  the  same  tropic  uniforms  they  wore  in  the  Dar- 
danelles. This  was  necessarily  true,  when  first  they  landed, 
but  almost  at  once  the  winter  uniform  was  issued  to  all  of 
them.  I  saw  no  British  or  French  soldier  who  was  not 
properly  and  warmly  clad,  with  overcoat,  muffler,  extra 
waistcoat,  and  gloves.  And  while  all,  both  officers  and  men, 
cursed  the  cold,  none  complained  that  he  had  not  been  ap- 
propriately clothed  to  meet  it.  R.  H.  D. 

156 


TWO  BOYS  AGAINST  AN  ARMY 

that  invites  you  out  of  doors.  It  had  no 
cheery,  healthful  appeal  to  skates,  tobog- 
gans, and  the  jangling  bells  of  a  cutter.  It 
was  the  damp,  clammy,  penetrating  cold  of 
a  dungeon,  of  an  unventilated  ice-chest,  of 
a  morgue.  Your  clothes  did  not  warm  you, 
the  heat  of  your  body  had  to  warm  your 
clothes.  And  warm,  also,  all  of  the  surround- 
ing hills. 

Between  the  road  and  the  margin  of  the 
lake  were  bamboo  reeds  as  tall  as  lances, 
and  at  the  edge  of  these  were  gathered 
myriads  of  ducks.  The  fishermen  were  en- 
gaged in  bombarding  the  ducks  with  rocks. 
They  went  about  this  in  a  methodical  fashion. 
All  around  the  lake,  concealed  in  the  reeds 
and  lifted  a  few  feet  above  the  water  they 
had  raised  huts  on  piles.  In  front  of  these 
huts  was  a  ledge  or  balcony.  They  looked 
like  overgrown  bird-houses  on  stilts. 

One  fisherman  waited  in  a  boat  to  pick 
up  the  dead  ducks,  and  the  other  hurled 
stones  from  a  sling.  It  was  the  same  kind 


TWO  BOYS  AGAINST  AN  ARMY 

of  a  sling  as  the  one  with  which  David  slew 
Goliath.  In  Athens  I  saw  small  .boys  using 
it  to  throw  stones  at  an  electric-light  pole. 
The  one  the  fisherman  used  was  about  eight 
feet  long.  To  get  the  momentum  he  whirled 
it  swiftly  above  his  head  as  a  cowboy  swings 
a  lariat,  and  then  let  one  end  fly  loose,  and 
the  stone,  escaping,  smashed  into  the  mass  of 
ducks.  If  it  stunned  or  killed  a  duck  the 
human  water-spaniel  in  the  boat  would  row 
out  and  retrieve  it.  To  duck  hunters  at 
home  the  sport  would  chiefly  recommend 
itself  through  the  cheapness  of  the  am- 
munition. 

On  the  road  we  met  relays  of  water-carts 
and  wagons  that  had  been  up  the  hills  with 
food  for  the  gunners  at  the  front;  and  en- 
gineers were  at  work  repairing  the  stone 
bridges  or  digging  detours  to  avoid  those 
that  had  disappeared.  They  had  been  built 
to  support  no  greater  burden  than  a  flock  of 
sheep,  an  ox-cart,  or  what  a  donkey  can  carry 
on  his  back,  and  the  assault  of  the  British 

158 


TWO  BOYS  AGAINST  AN  ARMY 

motor-trucks  and  French  six-inch  guns  had 
driven  them  deep  into  the  mud. 

After  ten  miles  we  came  to  what  a  staff 
officer  would  call  an  "advanced  base,"  but 
which  was  locally  designated  the  "Dump." 
At  the  side  of  the  road,  much  of  it  uncov- 
ered to  the  snow,  were  stores  of  ammuni- 
tion, "bully  beef,"  and  barb-wire.  The  camp 
bore  all  the  signs  of  a  temporary  halting 
place.  It  was  just  what  the  Tommies  called 
it,  a  dump.  We  had  not  been  told  then  that 
the  Allies  were  withdrawing,  but  one  did  not 
have  to  be  a  military  expert  to  see  that  there 
was  excellent  reason  why  they  should. 

They  were  so  few.  Whatever  the  force 
was  against  them,  the  force  I  saw  was  not 
strong  enough  to  hold  the  ground,  not  that 
it  covered,  but  over  which  it  was  sprinkled. 
There  were  outposts  without  supports,  sup- 
ports without  reserves.  A  squad  was  ex- 
pected to  perform  the  duties  of  a  company. 
Where  a  brigade  was  needed  there  was  less 
than  a  battalion.  Against  the  white  masses 


TWO  BOYS  AGAINST  AN  ARMY 

of  the  mountains  and  the  desolate  landscape 
without  trees,  houses,  huts,  without  any 
sign  of  human  habitation,  the  scattered 
groups  of  khaki  only  accented  the  bleak 
loneliness. 

At  the  dump  we  had  exchanged  for  the 
impromptu  motor-truck,  automobiles  of  the 
French  staff,  and  as  "Jimmie"  Hare  and  I 
were  alone  in  one  of  them  we  could  stop 
where  we  liked.  So  we  halted  where  an  Eng- 
lish battery  was  going  into  action.  It  had 
dug  itself  into  the  side  of  a  hill  and  covered 
itself  with  snow  and  pine  branches.  Some- 
where on  one  of  the  neighboring  hills  the 
"spotter"  was  telephoning  the  range.  The 
gunners  could  not  see  at  what  they  were 
firing.  They  could  see  only  the  high  hill  of 
rock  and  snow,  at  the  base  of  which  they 
stood  shoulder  high  in  their  mud  cellars. 
Ten  yards  to  the  rear  of  them  was  what 
looked  like  a  newly  made  grave  reverently 
covered  with  pine  boughs.  Through  these  a 
rat-faced  young  man,  with  the  receivers  of 

160 


From  a  photograph  by  William  G.  Shepherd. 


John  T.  McCutcheon. 

Richard  Harding  Davis. 


John  F.  Bass. 

James  H.  Hare. 


American  war  correspondents  at  the  French  front  in  Serbia. 


TWO  BOYS  AGAINST  AN  ARMY 

a  telephone  clamped  to  his  ears,  pushed  his 
head. 

"Eight  degrees  to  the  left,  sir,"  he  barked, 
"four  thousand  yards." 

The  men  behind  the  guns  were  extremely 
young,  but,  like  most  artillerymen,  alert, 
sinewy,  springing  to  their  appointed  tasks 
with  swift,  catlike  certainty.  The  sight  of 
the  two  strangers  seemed  to  surprise  them  as 
much  as  the  man  in  the  grave  had  startled 
us. 

There  were  two  boy  officers  in  command, 
one  certainly  not  yet  eighteen,  his  superior 
officer  still  under  twenty. 

"I  suppose  you're  all  right/'  said  the 
younger  one.  "You  couldn't  have  got  this 
far  if  you  weren't  all  right." 

He  tried  to  scowl  upon  us,  but  he  was  not 
successful.  He  was  too  lonely,  too  honestly 
glad  to  see  any  one  from  beyond  the  moun- 
tains that  hemmed  him  in.  They  stretched 
on  either  side  of  him  to  vast  distances,  massed 
barriers  of  white  against  a  gray,  sombre 

161 


TWO  BOYS  AGAINST  AN  ARMY 

sky;  in  front  of  him,  to  be  exact,  just  four 
thousand  yards  in  front  of  him,  were  Bul- 
garians he  had  never  seen,  but  who  were  al- 
ways with  their  shells  ordering  to  "move  on," 
and  behind  him  lay  a  muddy  road  that  led 
to  a  rail-head,  that  led  to  transports,  that  led 
to  France,  to  the  Channel,  and  England.  It 
was  a  long,  long  way  to  England.  I  felt  like 
taking  one  of  the  boy  officers  under  each  arm, 
and  smuggling  him  safely  home  to  his  mother. 

"You  don't  seem  to  have  any  supports," 
I  ventured. 

The  child  gazed  around  him.  It  was  grow- 
ing dark  and  gloomier,  and  the  hollows  of  the 
white  hills  were  filled  with  shadows.  His 
men  were  listening,  so  he  said  bravely,  with 
a  vague  sweep  of  the  hand  at  the  encircling 
darkness,  "Oh,  they're  about  —  somewhere. 
You  might  call  this,"  he  added,  with  pride* 
"an  independent  command." 

You  well  might. 

"Report  when  ready!"  chanted  his  supe- 
rior officer,  aged  nineteen. 

162 


TWO  BOYS  AGAINST  AN  ARMY 

He  reported,  and  then  the  guns  spoke, 
making  a  great  flash  in  the  twilight. 

In  spite  of  the  light,  Jimmie  Hare  was 
trying  to  make  a  photograph  of  the  guns. 

"Take  it  on  the  recoil,"  advised  the  child 
officer.  "It's  sure  to  stick.  It  always  does 
stick." 

The  men  laughed,  not  slavishly,  because 
the  officer  had  made  a  joke,  but  as  com- 
panions in  trouble,  and  because  when  you 
are  abandoned  on  a  mountainside  with  a 
lame  gun  that  jams,  you  must  not  take  it 
lying  down,  but  make  a  joke  of  it. 

The  French  chauffeur  was  pumping  his 
horn  for  us  to  return,  and  I  went,  shame- 
facedly, as  must  the  robbers  who  deserted 
the  babes  in  the  wood. 

In  farewell  I  offered  the  boy  officer  the 
best  cigars  for  sale  in  Greece,  which  is  the 
worse  thing  one  can  say  of  any  cigar.  I 
apologized  for  them,  but  explained  he  must 
take  them  because  they  were  called  the 
"King  of  England." 

163 


TWO  BOYS  AGAINST  AN  ARMY 

"I  would  take  them,"  said  the  infant, 
"if  they  were  called  the  'German  Em- 
peror. ' 

At  the  door  of  the  car  we  turned  and 
waved,  and  the  two  infants  waved  back. 
I  felt  I  had  meanly  deserted  them  —  that 
for  his  life  the  mother  of  each  could  hold  me 
to  account. 

But  as  we  drove  away  from  the  cellars  of 
mud,  the  gun  that  stuck,  and  the  "indepen- 
dent command,"  I  could  see  in  the  twilight 
the  flashes  of  the  guns  and  two  lonely  specks 
of  light. 

They  were  the  "King  of  England"  cigars 
burning  bravely. 


164 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  FRENCH-BRITISH  FRONT  IN 
SERBIA 

SALONIKA,  December,  1915. 
npHE  chauffeur  of  an  army  automobile 
A  must  make  his  way  against  cavalry,  artil- 
lery, motor-trucks,  motor-cycles,  men  march- 
ing, and  ambulances  filled  with  wounded, 
over  a  road  torn  by  thousand-ton  lorries  and 
excavated  by  washouts  and  Jack  Johnsons. 
It  is  therefore  necessary  for  him  to  drive 
with  care.  So  he  drives  at  sixty  miles  an 
hour,  and  tries  to  scrape  the  mud  from  every 
wheel  he  meets. 

In  these  days  of  his  downfall  the  greatest 
danger  to  the  life  of  the  war  correspondent 
is  that  he  must  move  about  in  automobiles 
driven  by  military  chauffeurs.  The  one  who 
drove  me  from  the  extreme  left  of  the  Eng- 
lish front  up  to  hill  516,  which  was  the  highest 

165 


THE  FRENCH-BRITISH  FRONT 

point  of  the  French  front,  told  me  that  in 
peace  times  he  drove  a  car  to  amuse  himself. 
His  idea  of  amusing  himself  was  to  sweep 
around  a  corner  on  one  wheel,  exclaim  with 
horror,  and  throw  on  all  the  brakes  with  the 
nose  of  the  car  projecting  over  a  precipice  a 
thousand  yards  deep.  He  knew  perfectly 
well  the  precipice  was  there,  but  he  leaped 
at  it  exactly  as  though  it  were  the  finish  line 
of  the  Vanderbilt  cup  race.  If  his  idea  of 
amusing  himself  was  to  make  me  sick  with 
terror  he  must  have  spent  a  thoroughly  en- 
joyable afternoon. 

The  approaches  to  hill  516,  the  base  of 
the  hill  on  the  side  hidden  from  the  Bul- 
garians, and  the  trenches  dug  into  it  were 
crowded  with  the  French.  At  that  point  of 
the  line  they  greatly  outnumbered  the  Eng- 
lish. But  it  was  not  the  elbow  touch  of 
numbers  that  explained  their  cheerfulness; 
it  was  because  they  knew  it  was  expected  of 
them.  The  famous  scholar  who  wrote  in 
our  school  geographies,  "The  French  are  a 

166 


IN  SERBIA 

gay  people,  fond  of  dancing  and  light  wines," 
established  a  tradition.  And  on  hill  516, 
although  it  was  to  keep  from  freezing  that 
they  danced,  and  though  the  light  wines 
were  melted  snow,  they  still  kept  up  that 
tradition  and  were  "gay." 

They  laughed  at  us  in  welcome,  crawling 
out  of  their  igloos  on  all  fours  like  bears  out 
of  a  cave;  they  laughed  when  we  photo- 
graphed them  crowding  to  get  in  front  of 
the  camera,  when  we  scattered  among  them 
copies  of  L  Opinion,  when  up  the  snow-clad 
hillside  we  skidded  and  slipped  and  fell. 
And  if  we  peered  into  the  gloom  of  the  shel- 
ters, where  they  crouched  on  the  frozen 
ground  with  snow  dripping  from  above, 
with  shoulders  pressed  against  walls  of  icy 
mud,  they  waved  spoons  at  us  and  invited 
us  to  share  their  soup.  Even  the  dark- 
skinned,  sombre-eyed  men  of  the  desert,  the 
tall  Moors  and  Algerians,  showed  their  white 
teeth  and  laughed  when  a  "seventy-five" 
exploded  from  an  unsuspicious  bush,  and  we 

167 


THE  FRENCH-BRITISH  FRONT 

jumped.  It  was  like  a  camp  of  Boy  Scouts, 
picnicking  for  one  day,  and  sure  the  same 
night  of  a  warm  supper  and  bed.  But  the 
best  these  poilus  might  hope  for  was  months 
of  ice,  snow,  and  mud,  of  discomfort,  colds, 
long  marches  carrying  heavy  burdens,  the 
pain  of  frost-bite,  and,  worst  of  all,  home- 
sickness. They  were  sure  of  nothing:  not 
even  of  the  next  minute.  For  hill  516  was 
dotted  with  oblong  rows  of  stones  with,  at 
one  end,  a  cross  of  green  twigs  and  a  sol- 
dier's cap. 

The  hill  was  the  highest  point  of  a  ridge 
that  looked  down  into  the  valleys  of  the  Var- 
dar  and  of  Bodjinia.  Toward  the  Bulgarians 
we  could  see  the  one  village  of  Kosturino, 
almost  indistinguishable  against  the  snow, 
and  for  fifty  miles,  even  with  glasses,  no  other 
sign  of  life.  Nothing  but  hills,  rocks,  bushes, 
and  snow.  When  the  "seventy-fives"  spoke 
with  their  smart,  sharp  crack  that  always 
seems  to  say,  "Take  that!"  and  to  add,  with 

aristocratic  insolence,   "and  be  damned  to 

168 


IN  SERBIA 

you!"  one  could  not  guess  what  they  were 
firing  at.  In  Champagne,  where  the  Germans 
were  as  near  as  from  a  hundred  to  forty  yards; 
in  Artois,  where  they  were  a  mile  distant,  but 
where  their  trench  was  as  clearly  in  sight 
as  the  butts  of  a  rifle-range,  you  could  un- 
derstand. You  knew  that  "that  dark  line 
over  there"  was  the  enemy. 

A  year  before  at  Soissons  you  had  seen 
the  smoke  of  the  German  guns  in  a  line 
fifteen  miles  long.  In  other  little  wars  you 
had  watched  the  shells  destroy  a  blockhouse, 
a  village,  or  burst  upon  a  column  of  men. 
But  from  hill  516  you  could  see  no  enemy; 
only  mountains  draped  in  snow,  silent,  empty, 
inscrutable.  It  seemed  ridiculous  to  be  at- 
tacking fifty  miles  of  landscape  with  tiny 
pills  of  steel.  But  although  we  could  not 
see  the  Bulgars,  they  could  see  the  flashes 
on  hill  516,  and  from  somewhere  out  of  the 
inscrutable  mountains  shells  burst  and  fell. 
They  fell  very  close,  within  forty  feet  of  us, 
and,  like  children  being  sent  to  bed  just  at 

169 


THE  FRENCH-BRITISH  FRONT 

dessert  time,  our  hosts  hurried  us  out  of  the 
trenches  and  drove  us  away. 

While  on  "516"  we  had  been  in  Bul- 
garia; now  we  returned  to  Serbia,  and  were 
halted  at  the  village  of  Valandova.  There 
had  been  a  ceremony  that  afternoon.  A 
general,  whose  name  we  may  not  mention, 
had  received  the  medaille  militaire.  One 
of  the  French  correspondents  asked  him  in 
recognition  of  which  of  his  victories  it  had 
been  bestowed.  The  general  possessed  a 
snappy  temper. 

"The  medal  was  given  me,"  he  said,  "be- 
cause I  was  the  only  general  without  it,  and 
I  was  becoming  conspicuous." 

It  had  long  been  dark  when  we  reached 
Strumnitza  station,  where  we  were  to  spend 
the  night  in  a  hospital  tent.  The  tent  was 
as  big  as  a  barn,  with  a  stove,  a  cot  for  each, 
and  fresh  linen  sheets.  All  these  good  things 
belong  to  the  men  we  had  left  on  hill  516 
awake  in  the  mud  and  snow.  I  felt  like  a 
burglar,  who,  while  the  owner  is  away,  sleeps 

170 


IN  SERBIA 

in  his  bed.  There  was  another  tent  with  a 
passageway  filled  with  medical  supplies  con- 
necting it  with  ours.  It  was  in  darkness,  and 
we  thought  it  empty  until  some  one  explor- 
ing found  it  crowded  with  wounded  and  men 
with  frozen  legs  and  hands.  For  half  an 
hour  they  had  been  watching  us  through  the 
passageway,  making  no  sign,  certainly  mak- 
ing no  complaint.  John  Bass  collected  all 
our  newspapers,  candles,  and  boxes  of  ciga- 
rettes, which  the  hospital  stewards  distrib- 
uted, and  when  we  returned  from  dinner  our 
neighbors  were  still  wide  awake  and  holding 
a  smoking  concert.  But  when  in  the  morn- 
ing the  bugles  woke  us  we  found  that  during 
the  night  the  wounded  had  been  spirited 
away,  and  by  rail  transferred  to  the  hospital 
ships.  We  should  have  known  then  that  the 
army  was  in  retreat.  But  it  was  all  so  orderly, 
so  leisurely,  that  it  seemed  like  merely  a  shift- 
ing from  one  point  of  the  front  to  another. 

We  dined  with  the  officers  and  they  cer- 
tainly gave  no  suggestion  of  men  contemplat- 

171 


THE  FRENCH-BRITISH  FRONT 

ing  retreat,  for  the  mess-hall  in  which  dinner 
was  served  had  been  completed  only  that 
afternoon.  It  was  of  rough  stones  and  cement, 
and  the  interior  walls  were  covered  with  white- 
wash. The  cement  was  not  yet  dry,  nor,  as 
John  McCutcheon  later  discovered  when  he 
drew  caricatures  on  it,  neither  was  the  white- 
wash. There  were  twenty  men  around  the 
dinner-table,  seated  on  ammunition-boxes 
and  Standard  Oil  cans,  and  so  close  together 
you  could  use  only  one  hand.  So,  you  gave 
up  trying  to  cut  your  food,  and  used  the 
free  hand  solely  in  drinking  toasts  to  the 
army,  to  France,  and  the  Allies.  Then,  to 
each  Ally  individually.  You  were  glad  there 
were  so  many  Allies.  For  it  was  not  Greek, 
but  French  wine,  of  the  kind  that  comes 
from  Rheims.  And  the  army  was  retreating. 
What  the  French  army  offers  its  guests  to 
drink  when  it  is  advancing  is  difficult  to 
imagine. 

We  were  waited  upon  by  an  enormous 
negro  from  Senegal  with  a  fez  as  tall  as  a 

172 


From  a  photograph  by  R.  II.  Davis. 

Headquarters  of  the  French  commander  in  Grevac,  Serbia. 


IN  SERBIA 

giant  firecracker.  Waiting  single-handed  on 
twenty  men  is  a  serious  matter.  And  be- 
cause the  officers  laughed  when  he  served  the 
soup  in  a  tin  basin  used  for  washing  dishes 
his  feelings  were  hurt.  It  was  explained  that 
"Chocolat"  in  his  own  country  was  a  prince, 
and  that  unless  treated  with  tact  he  might 
get  the  idea  that  waiting  on  a  table  is  not  a 
royal  prerogative.  One  of  the  officers  was  a 
genius  at  writing  impromptu  verses.  During 
one  course  he  would  write  them,  and  while 
Chocolat  was  collecting  the  plates  would 
sing  them.  Then  by  the  light  of  a  candle  on 
the  back  of  a  scrap  of  paper  he  would  write 
another  and  sing  that.  He  was  rivalled  in 
entertaining  us  by  the  officers  who  told 
anecdotes  of  war  fronts  from  the  Marne  to 
Smyrna,  who  proposed  toasts,  and  made 
speeches  in  response,  especially  by  the  of- 
ficer who  that  day  had  received  the  Croix 
de  Guerre  and  a  wound. 

I  sat  next  to  a  young  man  who  had  been 
talking  learnedly  of  dumdum   bullets   and 

i73 


THE  FRENCH-BRITISH  FRONT 

Parisian  restaurants.  They  asked  him  to 
recite,  and  to  my  horror  he  rose.  Until 
that  moment  he  had  been  a  serious  young 
officer,  talking  boulevard  French.  In  an 
instant  he  was  transformed.  He  was  a 
clown.  To  look  at  him  was  to  laugh.  He 
was  an  old  roue,  senile,  pitiable,  a  bourgeois, 
an  apache,  a  lover,  and  his  voice  was  so 
beautiful  that  each  sentence  sang.  He  used 
words  so  difficult  that  to  avoid  them  even 
Frenchmen  will  cross  the  street.  He  mas- 
tered them,  played  with  them,  caressed  them, 
sipped  of  them  as  a  connoisseur  sips  Madeira: 
he  tossed  them  into  the  air  like  radiant 
bubbles,  or  flung  them  at  us  with  the  rattle 
of  a  mitrailleuse.  When  in  triumph  he  sat 
down,  I  asked  him,  when  not  in  uniform, 
who  the  devil  he  happened  to  be. 

Again  he  was  the  bored  young  man.  In  a 
low  tone,  so  as  not  to  expose  my  ignorance  to 
others,  he  said. 

"I?  I  am  Barrielles  of  the  Theatre 
Odeon." 


IN  SERBIA 

We  were  receiving  so  much  that  to  make 
no  return  seemed  ungracious,  and  we  in- 
sisted that  John  T.  McCutcheon  should 
decorate  the  wall  of  the  new  mess-room  with 
the  caricatures  that  make  the  Chicago  Trib- 
une famous.  Our  hosts  were  delighted, 
but  it  was  hardly  fair  to  McCutcheon.  In- 
stead of  his  own  choice  of  weapons  he  was 
asked  to  prove  his  genius  on  wet  whitewash 
with  a  stick  of  charred  wood.  It  was  like 
asking  McLaughlin  to  make  good  on  a 
ploughed  field.  But  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  the  whitewash  fell  off  in  flakes,  there 
grew  upon  the  wall  a  tall,  gaunt  figure  with 
gleaming  eyes  and  teeth.  Chocolat  paid  it 
the  highest  compliment.  He  gave  a  wild 
howl  and  fled  into  the  night.  Then  in  quick 
succession,  while  the  Frenchmen  applauded 
each  swift  stroke,  appeared  the  faces  of  the 
song  writer,  the  comedian,  the  wounded  man, 
and  the  commanding  officer.  It  was  a  real 
triumph,  but  the  surprises  of  the  evening 
were  not  at  an  end.  McCutcheon  had  but 


THE  FRENCH-BRITISH  FRONT 

just  resumed  his  seat  when  the  newly  finished 
rear  wall  of  the  mess-hall  crashed  into  the 
room.  Where  had  been  rocks  and  cement 
was  a  gaping  void,  and  a  view  of  a  garden 
white  with  snow. 

While  we  were  rescuing  the  song  writer 
from  the  debris  McCutcheon  regarded  the 
fallen  wall  thoughtfully. 

"They  feared,"  he  said,  "  I  was  going  to  dec- 
orate that  wall  also,  and  they  sent  Chocolat 
outside  to  push  it  in." 

The  next  day  we  walked  along  the  bank 
of  the  Vardar  River  to  Gravec,  about  five 
miles  north  of  Strumnitza  station.  Five 
miles  farther  was  Demir-Kapu,  the  Gate  of 
Iron,  and  between  these  two  towns  is  a  high 
and  narrow  pass  famous  for  its  wild  and  mag- 
nificent beauty.  Fifteen  miles  beyond  that 
was  Krivolak,  the  most  advanced  French 
position.  On  the  hills  above  Gravec  were 
many  guns,  but  in  the  town  itself  only  a 
few  infantrymen.  It  was  a  town  entirely 
of  mud;  the  houses,  the  roads,  and  the  people 

176 


CO    -a 


eS     ^ 
o     o 


IN  SERBIA 

were  covered  with  it.  Gravec  is  proud  only 
of  its  church,  on  the  walls  of  which  in  colors 
still  rich  are  painted  many  devils  with  pitch- 
forks driving  the  wicked  ones  into  the  flames. 

One  of  the  poilus  put  his  finger  on  the 
mass  of  wicked  ones. 

"Les  Bodies,"  he  explained. 

Whether  the  devils  were  the  French  or 
the  English  he  did  not  say,  possibly  because 
at  the  moment  they  were  more  driven  against 
than  driving. 

Major  Merse,  the  commanding  officer,  in- 
vited us  to  his  headquarters.  They  were  in 
a  house  of  stone  and  mud,  from  which  pro- 
jected a  wooden  platform.  When  any  one 
appeared  upon  it  he  had  the  look  of  being 
about  to  make  a  speech.  The  major  asked 
us  to  take  photographs  of  Gravec  and  send 
them  to  his  wife.  He  wanted  her  to  see  in 
what  sort  of  a  place  he  was  condemned  to 
exist  during  the  winter.  He  did  not  wish 
her  to  think  of  him  as  sitting  in  front  of  a 
cafe  on  the  sidewalk,  and  the  snap-shots 


THE  FRENCH-BRITISH  FRONT 

would  show  her  that  Gravec  has  no  cafes, 
no  sidewalks  and  no  streets. 

But  he  was  not  condemned  to  spend  the 
winter  in  Gravec. 

Within  the  week  great  stores  of  ammuni- 
tion and  supplies  began  to  pour  into  it  from 
Krivolak,  and  the  Gate  of  Iron  became  the 
advanced  position,  and  Gravec  suddenly 
found  herself  of  importance  as  the  French 
base. 

To  understand  this  withdrawal,  find  on 
the  map  Krivolak,  and  follow  the  railroad 
and  River  Vardar  southeast  to  Gravec. 

The  cause  of  the  retreat  was  the  inability 
of  the  Serbians  to  hold  Monastir  and  their 
withdrawal  west,  which  left  a  gap  in  the 
former  line  of  Serbians,  French,  and  British. 
The  enemy  thus  was  south  and  west  of 
Sarrail,  and  his  left  flank  was  exposed. 

On  December  3,  finding  the  advanced  posi- 
tion at  Krivolak  threatened  by  four  divisions, 
100,000  men,  General  Sarrail  began  the  with- 
drawal, sending  south  by  rail  without  loss 

178 


IN  SERBIA 

all  ammunition  and  stores.  He  destroyed 
the  tunnel  at  Krivolak  and  all  the  bridges 
across  the  Vardar,  and  on  his  left  at  the 
Cerna  River.  The  fighting  was  heavy  at 
Prevedo  and  Biserence,  but  the  French  losses 
were  small.  He  withdrew  slowly,  twenty 
miles  in  one  week.  The  British  also  with- 
drew from  their  first  line  to  their  second  line 
of  defense. 

Demir-Kapu,  meaning  the  Gate  of  Iron, 
is  the  entrance  to  a  valley  celebrated  for  its 
wild  and  magnificent  beauty.  Starting  at 
Demir-Kapu,  it  ends  two  kilometres  north 
of  Gravec.  It  rises  on  either  side  of  the 
Vardar  River  and  railroad  line,  and  in  places 
is  less  than  a  hundred  yards  wide.  It  is 
formed  of  sheer  hills  of  rock,  treeless  and 
exposed. 

But  the  fame  of  Gravec  as  the  French 
base  was  short-lived.  For  the  Serbians  at 
Monastir  and  Gevgeli,  though  fighting 
bravely,  were  forced  toward  Albania,  leav- 
ing the  left  flank  of  Sarrail  still  more  ex- 

179 


THE  FRENCH-BRITISH  FRONT 

posed.  And  the  Gate  of  Iron  belied  her  an- 
cient title. 

With  100,000  Bulgars  crowding  down 
upon  him  General  Sarrail  wasted  no  lives, 
either  French  or  English,  but  again  with- 
drew. He  was  outnumbered,  some  say  five 
to  one.  In  any  event,  he  was  outnumbered 
as  inevitably  as  three  of  a  kind  beat  two 
pair.  A  good  poker  player  does  not  waste 
chips  backing  two  pair.  Neither  should  a 
good  general,  when  his  chips  are  human 
lives.  As  it  was,  in  the  retreat  seven  hundred 
French  were  killed  or  wounded,  and  of  the 
British,  who  were  more  directly  in  the  path 
of  the  Bulgars,  one  thousand. 

At  Gevgeli  the  French  delayed  two  days 
to  allow  the  Serbian  troops  to  get  away,  and 
then  themselves  withdrew.  There  now  no 
longer  were  any  Serbian  soldiers  in  Serbia. 
So  both  armies  fell  back  toward  Salonika  on 
a  line  between  Kilindir  and  Doiran  railroad- 
station,  and  all  the  places  we  visited  a  week 

before   were   occupied   by   the  enemy.    At 

1 80 


IN  SERBIA 

Gravec  a  Bulgarian  is  pointing  at  the  wicked 
ones  who  are  being  driven  into  the  flames 
and  saying:  "The  Allies,"  and  at  Strum- 
nitza  station  in  the  mess-hall  Bulgar  officers 
are  framing  John  McCutcheon's  sketches. 

And  here  at  Salonika  from  sunrise  to  sun- 
set the  English  are  disembarking  reinforce- 
ments, and  the  French  building  barracks  of 
stone  and  brick.  It  looks  as  though  the 
French  were  here  to  stay,  and  as  though  the 
retreating  habit  was  broken. 

The  same  team  that,  to  put  it  politely, 
drew  the  enemy  after  them  to  the  gates  of 
Paris,  have  been  drawing  the  same  enemy 
after  them  to  Salonika.  That  they  will 
throw  him  back  from  Salonika,  as  they 
threw  him  back  from  Paris,  is  assured. 

General  Sarrail  was  one  of  those  who 
commanded  in  front  of  Paris,  and  General 
de  Castelnau,  who  also  commanded  at  the 
battle  of  the  Marne,  and  is  now  chief  of  staff 
of  General  Joffre,  has  just  visited  him  here. 
General  de  Castelnau  was  sent  to  "go,  look, 

181 


THE  FRENCH-BRITISH  FRONT 

see."  He  reports  that  the  position  now 
held  by  the  Allies  is  impregnable. 

The  perimeter  held  by  them  is  fifty  miles 
in  length  and  stretches  from  the  Vardar 
River  on  the  west  to  the  Gulf  of  Orplanos 
on  the  east.  There  are  three  lines  of  de- 
fense. To  assist  the  first  two  on  the  east 
are  Lakes  Beshik  and  Langaza,  on  the  west 
the  Vardar  River.  Should  the  enemy  pene- 
trate the  first  lines  they  will  be  confronted 
ten  miles  from  Salonika  by  a  natural  bar- 
rier of  hills,  and  ten  miles  of  intrenchments 
and  barb-wire.  Should  the  enemy  surmount 
these  hills  the  Allies  war-ships  in  the  harbor 
can  sweep  him  off  them  as  a  fire-hose  rips 
the  shingles  off  a  roof. 

The  man  who  tells  you  he  understands  the 
situation  in  Salonika  is  of  the  same  mental 
caliber  as  the  one  who  understands  a  system 
for  beating  the  game  at  Monte  Carlo.  But 
there  are  certain  rumors  as  to  the  situation 
in  the  future  that  can  be  eliminated.  First, 
Greece  will  not  turn  against  the  Allies. 

182 


IN  SERBIA 

Second,  the  Allies  will  not  withdraw  from 
Salonika.  They  now  are  agreed  it  is  better 
to  resist  an  attack  or  stand  a  siege,  even  if 
they  lose  200,000  men,  than  to  withdraw 
from  the  Balkans  without  a  fight. 

The  Briand  government  believes  that  had 
the  Millerand  government,  which  it  over- 
threw, sent  troops  to  aid  the  Serbian  army 
in  August  this  war  would  have  been  made 
shorter  by  six  months.  It  now  is  trying  to 
repair  the  mistake  of  the  government  it 
ousted.  Among  other  reasons  it  has  for 
remaining  in  the  Balkans,  is  that  the  pres- 
ence of  200,000  men  at  Salonika  will  hold 
Roumania  from  any  aggressive  movement 
on  Russia. 

To  aid  the  Allies,  Russia  at  Tannenberg 
made  a  sacrifice,  and  lost  200,000  men. 
The  present  French  Government  now  feels 
bound  in  honor  to  help  Russia  by  keeping 
the  French-British  armies  at  Salonika.  As 
a  visiting  member  of  the  government  said 
tome: 

183 


THE  FRENCH-BRITISH  FRONT 

"In  this  war  there  is  no  western  line  or 
eastern  line.  The  line  of  the  Allies  is  wherever 
a  German  attacks.  France  went  to  the  Bal- 
kans to  help  Serbia.  She  went  too  late, 
which  is  not  the  fault  of  the  present  govern- 
ment. But  there  remains  the  task  to  keep 
the  Germans  from  Egypt,  to  menace  the  rail- 
road at  Adrianople,  and  to  prevent  Rou- 
mania  from  an  attack  upon  the  flank  of 
Russia.  The  Allies  are  in  Salonika  until  this 
war  is  ended." 

In  Salonika  you  see  every  evidence  that 
this  is  the  purpose  of  the  Allies;  that  both 
England  and  France  are  determined  to  hold 
fast. 

Reinforcements  of  British  troops  are  ar- 
riving daily,  and  the  French  are  importing 
large  numbers  of  ready-to-set-up  wooden 
barracks,  each  capable  of  holding  250  men. 
Also  along  the  water-front  they  are  build- 
ing storehouses  of  brick  and  stone.  That 
does  not  suggest  an  immediate  departure. 
At  the  French  camp,  which  covers  five  square 

184 


IN  SERBIA 

miles  in  the  suburbs  of  Salonika  when  I 
visited  it  to-day,  thousands  of  soldiers  were 
actively  engaged  in  laying  stone  roads,  re- 
pairing bridges  and  erecting  new  ones.  There 
is  no  question  but  that  they  intend  to  make 
this  the  base  until  the  advance  in  the  spring. 

A  battalion  of  Serbians  700  strong  has 
arrived  at  the  French  camp.  In  size  and 
physique  they  are  splendid  specimens  of 
fighting  men.  They  are  now  road  building. 
Each  day  refugees  of  the  Serbian  army  add 
to  their  number. 

At  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the  14th 
of  December,  the  Greek  army  evacuated  Sa- 
lonika and  that  strip  of  Greek  territory 
stretching  from  it  to  Doiran. 

From  before  sunrise  an  unbroken  column 
of  Greek  regiments  passed  beneath  the  win- 
dows of  our  hotel.  There  were  artillery, 
cavalry,  pontoons,  ambulances,  and  thou- 
sands of  ponies  and  donkeys,  carrying  fod- 
der, supplies,  and  tents.  The  sidewalks  were 
invaded  by  long  lines  of  infantry.  The 

185 


THE  FRENCH-BRITISH  FRONT 

water-front  along  which  the  column  passed 
was  blocked  with  spectators. 

As  soon  as  the  Greeks  had  departed  sailors 
from  the  Allied  war-ships  were  given  shore 
leave,  and  the  city  took  on  the  air  of  a  holi- 
day. Thus  was  a  most  embarrassing  situa- 
tion brought  to  an  end  and  the  world  in- 
formed that  the  Allies  had  but  just  begun  to 
fight.  It  was  the  clearing  of  the  prize-ring. 

The  clearing  also  of  the  enemy's  consulates 
ended  another  embarrassing  situation.  As 
suggested  in  a  previous  chapter,  the  con- 
sulates of  the  Central  Powers  were  the  hot- 
beds and  clearing-houses  for  spies.  The 
raid  upon  them  by  the  French  proved  that 
this  was  true.  The  enforced  departure  of 
the  German,  Austrian,  Bulgarian,  and  Turk- 
ish consuls  added  to  the  responsibilities  of 
our  own  who  has  now  to  guard  their  in- 
terests. They  will  be  efficiently  served. 
John  E.  Kehl  has  been  long  in  our  consular 
service,  and  is  most  admirably  fitted  to 
meet  the  present  crisis.  He  has  been  our 

1 86 


IN  SERBIA 

representative  at  Salonika  for  four  years,  in 
which  time  his  experience  as  consul  during 
the  Italian-Turkish  War,  the  two  Balkan 
wars,  and  the  present  war,  have  trained 
him  to  meet  any  situation  that  is  likely  to 
arrive. 

What  that  situation  may  be,  whether  the 
Bulgar-Germans  will  attack  Salonika,  or  the 
Allies  will  advance  upon  Sofia,  and  as  an 
inevitable  sequence  draw  after  them  the 
Greek  army  of  200,000  veterans,  only  the 
spring  can  tell. 

If  the  Teutons  mean  to  advance,  having 
the  shorter  distance  to  go,  they  may  launch 
their  attack  in  April.  The  Allies,  if  Sofia 
is  their  objective,  will  wait  for  the  snow  to 
leave  the  hills  and  the  roads  to  dry.  That 
they  would  move  before  May  is  doubtful. 
Meanwhile,  they  are  accumulating  many  men, 
and  much  ammunition  and  information.  May 
they  make  good  use  of  it. 


187 


CHAPTER  IX 

VERDUN  AND  ST.  MIHIEL 

PARIS,  January,  1916. 

IT  is  an  old  saying  that  the  busiest  man 
always  seems  to  have  the  most  leisure. 
It  is  another  way  of  complimenting  him  on 
his  genius  for  organization.  When  you  visit 
a  real  man  of  affairs  you  seldom  find  him 
surrounded  by  secretaries,  stenographers,  and 
a  battery  of  telephones.  As  a  rule,  there  is 
nothing  on  his  desk  save  a  photograph  of 
his  wife  and  a  rose  in  a  glass  of  water.  Out- 
side the  headquarters  of  the  general  there 
were  no  gendarmes,  no  sentries,  no  panting 
automobiles,  no  mud-flecked  chasseurs-a- 
cheval.  Unchallenged  the  car  rolled  up  an 
empty  avenue  of  trees  and  stopped  beside 
an  empty  terrace  of  an  apparently  empty 
chateau.  At  one  end  of  the  terrace  was  a 
pond,  and  in  it  floated  seven  beautiful  swans. 

1 88 


VERDUN  AND  ST.  MIHIEL 

They  were  the  only  living  things  in  sight.  I 
thought  we  had  stumbled  upon  the  country 
home  of  some  gentleman  of  elegant  leisure. 

When  he  appeared  the  manner  of  the 
general  assisted  that  impression.  His  cour- 
tesy was  so  undisturbed,  his  mind  so  tranquil, 
his  conversation  so  entirely  that  of  the  polite 
host,  you  felt  he  was  masquerading  in  the 
uniform  of  a  general  only  because  he  knew  it 
was  becoming.  He  glowed  with  health  and 
vigor.  He  had  the  appearance  of  having 
just  come  indoors  after  a  satisfactory  round 
on  his  private  golf-links.  Instead,  he  had 
been  receiving  reports  from  twenty-four  dif- 
ferent staff-officers.  His  manner  suggested 
he  had  no  more  serious  responsibility  than 
feeding  bread  crumbs  to  the  seven  stately 
swans.  Instead  he  was  responsible  for  the 
lives  of  170,000  men  and  fifty  miles  of  trenches. 
His  duties  were  to  feed  the  men  three  times 
a  day  with  food,  and  all  day  and  night  with 
ammunition,  to  guard  them  against  attacks 
from  gases,  burning  oil,  bullets,  shells;  and 

189 


VERDUN  AND  ST.  MIHIEL 

in  counter-attack  to  send  them  forward  with 
the  bayonet  across  hurdles  of  barb-wire  to 
distribute  death.  These  were  only  a  few  of 
his  responsiblities. 

I  knew  somewhere  in  the  chateau  there 
must  be  the  conning-tower  from  which  the 
general  directed  his  armies,  and  after  luncheon 
asked  to  be  allowed  to  visit  it.  It  was  filled 
with  maps,  in  size  enormous  but  rich  in  tiny 
details,  nailed  on  frames,  pinned  to  the  walls, 
spread  over  vast  drawing-boards.  -But  to 
the  visitor  more  marvellous  than  the  maps 
showing  the  French  lines  were  those  in  which 
were  set  forth  the  German  positions,  marked 
with  the  place  occupied  by  each  unit,  giving 
the  exact  situation  of  the  German  trenches, 
the  German  batteries,  giving  the  numerals 
of  each  regiment.  With  these  spread  before 
him,  the  general  has  only  to  lift  the  hand 
telephone,  and  direct  that  from  a  spot  on 
a  map  on  one  wall  several  tons  of  explosive 
shells  shall  drop  on  a  spot  on  another  map 
on  the  wall  opposite.  The  general  does  not 

190 


The  ruined  village  of  GerbeViller,  destroyed  after  their  retreat 

by  the  Germans. 
Captain  Gabriel  Puaux,  of  the  General-Headquarters  Staff,  and  Mr.  Davis. 


VERDUN  AND  ST.  MIHIEL 

fight  only  at  long  distance  from  a  map. 
Each  morning  he  visits  some  part  of  the 
fifty  miles  of  trenches.  What  later  he  sees 
on  his  map  only  jogs  his  memory.  It  is  a 
sort  of  shorthand  note.  Where  to  you  are 
waving  lines,  dots,  and  crosses,  he  beholds 
valleys,  forests,  miles  of  yellow  trenches.  A 
week  ago,  during  a  bombardment,  a  brother 
general  advanced  into  the  first  trench.  His 
chief  of  staff  tugged  at  his  cloak. 

"My  men  like  to  see  me  here,"  said  the 
general. 

A  shell  killed  him.  But  who  can  protest 
it  was  a  life  wasted?  He  made  it  possible 
for  every  poilu  in  a  trench  of  five  hundred 
miles  to  say:  "Our  generals  do  not  send  us 
where  they  will  not  go  themselves." 

We  left  the  white  swans  smoothing  their 
feathers,  and  through  rain  drove  to  a  hill 
covered  closely  with  small  trees.  The  trees 
were  small,  because  the  soil  from  which  they 
drew  sustenance  was  only  one  to  three  feet 
deep.  Beneath  that  was  chalk.  Through 

191 


VERDUN  AND  ST.  MIHIEL 

these  woods  was  cut  a  runway  for  a  toy 
railroad.  It  possessed  the  narrowest  of  nar- 
row gauges,  and  its  rolling-stock  consisted 
of  flat  cars  three  feet  wide,  drawn  by  splen- 
did Percherons.  The  live  stock,  the  rolling- 
stock,  the  tracks,  and  the  trees  on  either  side 
of  the  tracks  were  entirely  covered  with 
white  clay.  Even  the  brakemen  and  the 
locomotive-engineer  who  walked  in  advance 
of  the  horses  were  completely  painted  with 
it.  And  before  we  got  out  of  the  woods,  so 
were  the  passengers.  This  railroad  feeds 
the  trenches,  carrying  to  them  water  and 
ammunition,  and  to  the  kitchens  in  the  rear 
uncooked  food. 

The  French  marquis  who  escorted  "Mon 
Capitaine"  of  the  Grand  Quartier  General 
des  Armees,  who  was  my  "guide  philosopher 
and  friend,"  to  the  trenches  either  had  built 
this  railroad,  or  owned  a  controlling  interest 
in  it,  for  he  always  spoke  of  it  proudly  as 
"my  express,"  "my  special  train,"  "my 
petite  vitesse."  He  had  lately  been  in  Amer- 
ica buying  cavalry  horses. 

192 


VERDUN  AND  ST.  MIHIEL 

As  for  years  he  has  owned  one  of  the 
famous  racing  stables  in  France,  his  knowl- 
edge of  them  is  exceptional. 

When  last  I  had  seen  him  he  was  in  silk, 
on  one  of  his  own  thoroughbreds,  and  the 
crowd,  or  that  part  of  it  that  had  backed  his 
horse,  was  applauding,  and,  while  he  waited 
for  permission  to  dismount,  he  was  smiling 
and  laughing.  Yesterday,  when  the  plough 
horses  pulled  his  express-train  off  the  rails, 
he  descended  and  pushed  it  back,  and,  in 
consequence,  was  splashed,  not  by  the  mud 
of  the  race-track  but  of  the  trenches.  Nor 
in  the  misty,  dripping,  rain-soaked  forest 
was  there  any  one  to  applaud.  But  he  was 
still  laughing,  even  more  happily. 

The  trenches  were  dug  around  what  had 
been  a  chalk  mine,  and  it  was  difficult  to 
tell  where  the  mining  for  profit  had  stopped 
and  the  excavations  for  defense  began.  When 
you  can  see  only  chalk  at  your  feet,  and  chalk 
on  either  hand,  and  overhead  the  empty 
sky,  this  ignorance  may  be  excused.  In 
the  boyaux,  which  began  where  the  railroad 


VERDUN  AND  ST.  MIHIEL 

stopped,  that  was  our  position.  We  walked 
through  an  endless  grave  with  walls  of  clay, 
on  top  of  which  was  a  scant  foot  of  earth. 
It  looked  like  a  layer  of  chocolate  on  the 
top  of  a  cake. 

In  some  places,  underfoot  was  a  cordu- 
roy path  of  sticks,  like  the  false  bottom  of 
a  rowboat;  in  others,  we  splashed  through 
open  sluices  of  clay  and  rain-water.  You 
slid  and  skidded,  and  to  hold  yourself  erect 
pressed  with  each  hand  against  the  wet  walls 
of  the  endless  grave. 

We  came  out  upon  the  "hauts  de  Meuse." 
They  are  called  also  the  "Shores  of  Lor- 
raine," because  to  that  province,  as  are  the 
cliffs  of  Dover  to  the  county  of  Kent,  they 
form  a  natural  barrier.  We  were  in  the  quarry 
that  had  been  cut  into  the  top  of  the  heights 
on  the  side  that  now  faces  other  heights  held 
by  the  enemy.  Behind  us  rose  a  sheer  wall 
of  chalk  as  high  as  a  five-story  building. 
The  face  of  it  had  been  pounded  by  shells. 
It  was  as  undismayed  as  the  whitewashed 

194 


VERDUN  AND  ST.  MIHIEL 

wall  of  a  schoolroom  at  which  generations 
of  small  boys  have  flung  impertinent  spit- 
balls.  At  the  edge  of  the  quarry  the  floor 
was  dug  deeper,  leaving  a  wall  between  it 
and  the  enemy,  and  behind  this  wall  were 
the  posts  of  observation,  the  nests  of  the 
machine-guns,  the  raised  step  to  which  the 
men  spring  when  repulsing  an  attack.  Be- 
low and  back  of  them  were  the  shelters  into 
which,  during  a  bombardment,  they  disap- 
pear. They  were  roofed  with  great  beams, 
on  top  of  which  were  bags  of  cement  piled 
three  and  four  yards  high. 

Not  on  account  of  the  sleet  and  fog,  but 
in  spite  of  them,  the  aspect  of  the  place  was 
grim  and  forbidding.  You  did  not  see,  as 
at  some  of  the  other  fronts,  on  the  sign- 
boards that  guide  the  men  through  the 
maze,  jokes  and  nicknames.  The  mess-huts 
and  sleeping-caves  bore  no  such  ironic  titles 
as  the  Petit  Cafe,  the  Anti-Boche,  Chez 
Maxim.  They  were  designated  only  by 
numerals,  businesslike  and  brief.  It  was  no 


VERDUN  AND  ST.  MIHIEL 

place  for  humor.  The  monuments  to  the 
dead  were  too  much  in  evidence.  On  every 
front  the  men  rise  and  lie  down  with  death, 
but  on  no  other  front  had  I  found  them 
living  so  close  to  the  graves  of  their  former 
comrades.  Where  a  man  had  fallen,  there 
had  he  been  buried,  and  on  every  hand  you 
saw  between  the  chalk  huts,  at  the  mouths 
of  the  pits  or  raised  high  in  a  niche,  a  pile 
of  stones,  a  cross,  and  a  soldier's  cap.  Where 
one  officer  had  fallen  his  men  had  built  to 
his  memory  a  mausoleum.  It  is  also  a  shelter 
into  which,  when  the  shells  come,  they  dive 
for  safety.  So  that  even  in  death  he  pro- 
tects them. 

I  was  invited  into  a  post  of  observation, 
and  told  to  make  my  entrance  quickly. 
In  order  to  exist,  a  post  of  observation  must 
continue  to  look  to  the  enemy  only  like 
part  of  the  wall  of  earth  that  faces  him.  If 
through  its  apparently  solid  front  there  flashes, 
even  for  an  instant,  a  ray  of  sunlight,  he 
knows  that  the  ray  comes  through  a  peep- 

196 


VERDUN  AND  ST.  MIHIEL 

hole,  and  that  behind  the  peep-hole  men 
with  field-glasses  are  watching  him.  And 
with  his  shells  he  hammers  the  post  of  obser- 
vation into  a  shambles.  Accordingly,  when 
you  enter  one,  it  is  etiquette  not  to  keep  the 
door  open  any  longer  than  is  necessary  to 
squeeze  past  it.  As  a  rule,  the  door  is  a 
curtain  of  sacking,  but  hands  and  bodies 
coated  with  clay,  by  brushing  against  it, 
have  made  it  quite  opaque. 

The  post  was  as  small  as  a  chart-room, 
and  the  light  came  only  through  the  peep- 
holes. You  got  a  glimpse  of  a  rack  of  rifles, 
of  shadowy  figures  that  made  way  for  you, 
and  of  your  captain  speaking  in  a  whisper. 
When  you  put  your  eyes  to  the  peep-hole 
it  was  like  looking  at  a  photograph  through 
a  stereoscope.  But,  instead  of  seeing  the 
lake  of  Geneva,  the  Houses  of  Parliament, 
or  Niagara  Falls,  you  looked  across  a  rain- 
driven  valley  of  mud,  on  the  opposite  side  of 
which  was  a  hill. 

Here  the  reader  kindly  will  imagine  a 
197 


VERDUN  AND  ST.  MIHIEL 

page  of  printed  matter  devoted  to  that  hill. 
It  was  an  extremely  interesting  hill,  but  my 
captain,  who  also  is  my  censor,  decides  that 
what  I  wrote  was  too  interesting,  especially 
to  Germans.  So  the  hill  is  "strafed."  He 
says  I  can  begin  again  vaguely  with  "Over 
there." 

"Over  there,"  said  his  voice  in  the  dark- 
ness, "is  St.  Mihiel." 

For  more  than  a  year  you  had  read  of 
St.  Mihiel.  Communiques,  maps,  illustra- 
tions had  made  it  famous  and  familiar.  It 
was  the  town  that  gave  a  name  to  the  Ger- 
man salient,  to  the  point  thrust  in  advance 
of  what  should  be  his  front.  You  expected 
to  see  an  isolated  hill,  a  promontory,  some 
position  of  such  strategic  value  as  would 
explain  why  for  St.  Mihiel  the  lives  of  thou- 
sands of  Germans  had  been  thrown  upon 
the  board.  But  except  for  the  obstinacy  of 
the  German  mind,  or,  upon  the  part  of  the 
Crown  Prince  the  lack  of  it,  I  could  find  no 
explanation.  Why  the  German  wants  to 

198 


VERDUN  AND  ST.  MIHIEL 

hold  St.  Mihiel,  why  he  ever  tried  to  hold 
it,  why  if  it  so  pleases  him  he  should  not 
continue  to  hold  it  until  his  whole  line  is 
driven  across  the  border,  is  difficult  to  under- 
stand. For  him  it  is  certainly  an  expensive 
position.  It  lengthens  his  lines  of  communi- 
cation and  increases  his  need  of  transport. 
It  eats  up  men,  eats  up  rations,  eats  up 
priceless  ammunition,  and  it  leads  to  no- 
where, enfilades  no  position,  threatens  no 
one.  It  is  like  an  ill-mannered  boy  sticking 
out  his  tongue.  And  as  ineffective. 

The  physical  aspect  of  St.  Mihiel  is  a 
broad  sweep  of  meadow-land  cut  in  half  by 
the  Meuse  flooding  her  banks;  and  the 
shattered  houses  of  the  Ferme  Mont  Meuse, 
which  now  form  the  point  of  the  salient. 
At  this  place  the  opposing  trenches  are  only 
a  hundred  yards  apart,  and  all  of  this  low 
ground  is  commanded  by  the  French  guns 
on  the  heights  of  Les  Parodies.  On  the  day 
of  our  visit  they  were  being  heavily  bom- 
barded. On  each  side  of  the  salient  are  the 

199 


VERDUN  AND  ST.  MIHIEL 

French.  Across  the  battle-ground  of  St. 
Mihiel  I  could  see  their  trenches  facing  those 
in  which  we  stood.  For,  at  St.  Mihiel,  in- 
stead of  having  the  line  of  the  enemy  only 
in  front,  the  lines  face  the  German,  and  sur- 
round him  on  both  flanks.  Speaking  not  as 
a  military  strategist  but  merely  as  a  partisan, 
if  any  German  commander  wants  that  kind 
of  a  position  I  would  certainly  make  him  a 
present  of  it. 

The  colonel  who  commanded  the  trenches 
possessed  an  enthusiasm  that  was  beautiful 
to  see.  He  was  as  proud  of  his  chalk  quarry 
as  an  admiral  of  his  first  dreadnaught.  He 
was  as  isolated  as  though  cast  upon  a  rock 
in  mid-ocean.  Behind  him  was  the  dripping 
forest,  in  front  the  mud  valley  filled  with 
floating  fogs.  At  his  feet  in  the  chalk  floor 
the  shells  had  gouged  out  holes  as  deep  as 
rain-barrels.  Other  shells  were  liable  at  any 
moment  to  gouge  out  more  holes.  Three 
days  before,  when  Prince  Arthur  of  Con- 
naught  had  come  to  tea,  a  shell  had  hit  out- 
zoo 


From  a  photograph,  copyright  by  Underwood  and  Underwood. 

A  first-line  trench  outside  of  Verdun. 

The  trench  enfilades  the  valley  beyond,  and  the  valley  is  covered  with  barbed  wire 
and  gun-pits. 


VERDUN  AND  ST.  MIHIEL 

side  the  colonel's  private  cave,  and  smashed 
all  the  teacups.  It  is  extremely  annoying 
when  English  royalty  drops  in  sociably  to 
distribute  medals  and  sip  a  cup  of  tea  to 
have  German  shells  invite  themselves  to  the 
party.  It  is  a  way  German  shells  have. 
They  push  in  everywhere.  One  invited  itself 
to  my  party  and  got  within  ten  feet  of  it. 
When  I  complained,  the  colonel  suggested 
absently  that  it  probably  was  not  a  German 
shell  but  a  French  mine  that  had  gone  off 
prematurely.  He  seemed  to  think  being  hit 
by  a  French  mine  rather  than  by  a  German 
shell  made  all  the  difference  in  the  world. 
It  nearly  did. 

At  the  moment  the  colonel  was  greatly 
interested  in  the  fact  that  one  of  his  men 
was  not  carrying  a  mask  against  gases. 
The  colonel  argued  that  the  life  of  the  man 
belonged  to  France,  and  that  through  lazi- 
ness or  indifference  he  had  no  right  to  risk 
losing  it.  Until  this  war  the  colonel  had  com- 
manded in  Africa  the  regiment  into  which 

20 1 


VERDUN  AND  ST.  MIHIEL 

criminals  are  drafted  as  a  punishment.  To 
keep  them  in  hand  requires  both  imagina- 
tion and  the  direct  methods  of  a  bucko 
mate  on  a  whaler.  When  the  colonel  was 
promoted  to  his  present  command  he  found 
the  men  did  not  place  much  confidence  in 
the  gas  masks,  so  he  filled  a  shelter  with 
poisoned  air,  equipped  a  squad  with  pro- 
tectors and  ordered  them  to  enter.  They 
went  without  enthusiasm,  but  when  they 
found  they  could  move  about  with  impunity 
the  confidence  of  the  entire  command  in  the 
anti-gas  masks  was  absolute. 

The  colonel  was  very  vigilant  against 
these  gas  attacks.  He  had  equipped  the 
only  shelter  I  have  seen  devoted  solely  to 
the  preparation  of  defenses  against  them. 
We  learned  several  new  facts  concerning 
this  hideous  form  of  warfare.  One  was 
that  the  Germans  now  launch  the  gas  most 
frequently  at  night  when  the  men  cannot 
see  it  approach,  and,  in  consequence,  before 
they  can  snap  the  masks  into  place,  they 

202 


VERDUN  AND  ST.  MIHIEL 

are  suffocated,  and  in  great  agony  die.  They 
have  learned  much  about  the  gas,  but  chiefly 
by  bitter  experience.  Two  hours  after  one 
of  the  attacks  an  officer  seeking  his  field- 
glasses  descended  into  his  shelter.  The  gas 
that  had  flooded  the  trenches  and  then 
floated  away  still  lurked  below.  And  in  a 
moment  the  officer  was  dead.  The  warn- 
ing was  instantly  flashed  along  the  trenches 
from  the  North  Sea  to  Switzerland,  and  now 
after  a  gas  raid,  before  any  one  enters  a  shel- 
ter, it  is  attacked  by  counter-irritants,  and 
the  poison  driven  from  ambush. 

I  have  never  seen  better  discipline  than 
obtained  in  that  chalk  quarry,  or  better 
spirit.  There  was  not  a  single  outside  ele- 
ment to  aid  discipline  or  to  inspire  morale. 
It  had  all  to  come  from  within.  It  had  all 
to  spring  from  the  men  themselves  and 
from  the  example  set  by  their  officers.  The 
enemy  fought  against  them,  the  elements 
fought  against  them,  the  place  itself  was  as 
cheerful  as  a  crutch.  The  clay  climbed  from 

203 


VERDUN  AND  ST.  MIHIEL 

their  feet  to  their  hips,  was  ground  into  their 
uniforms,  clung  to  their  hands  and  hair. 
The  rain  chilled  them,  the  wind,  cold,  damp, 
and  harsh,  stabbed  through  their  greatcoats. 
Their  outlook  was  upon  graves,  their  resting- 
places  dark  caverns,  at  which  even  a  wolf 
would  look  with  suspicion.  And  yet  they 
were  all  smiling,  eager,  alert.  In  the  whole 
command  we  saw  not  one  sullen  or  wistful 
face. 

It  is  an  old  saying:  "So  the  colonel,  so  the 
regiment." 

But  the  splendid  spirit  I  saw  on  the  heights 
of  the  Meuse  is  true  not  only  of  that  colonel 
and  of  that  regiment,  but  of  the  whole  five 
hundred  miles  of  trenches,  and  of  all  France. 

February,  1916. 

When  I  was  in  Verdun,  the  Germans,  from 
a  distance  of  twenty  miles,  had  dropped 
three  shells  into  Nancy  and  threatened  to 
send  more.  That  gave  Nancy  an  interest 
which  Verdun  lacked.  So  I  was  intolerant 

204 


VERDUN  AND  ST.  MIHIEL 

of  Verdun  and  anxious  to  hasten  on  to 
Nancy. 

To-day  Nancy  and  her  three  shells  are 
forgotten,  and  to  all  the  world  the  place  of 
greatest  interest  is  Verdun.  Verdun  has 
been  Roman,  Austrian,  and  not  until  1648 
did  she  become  a  part  of  France.  This  is 
the  fourth  time  she  has  been  attacked  —  by 
the  Prussians  in  1792,  again  by  the  Germans 
in  1870,  when,  after  a  gallant  defense  of  three 
weeks,  she  surrendered,  and  in  October  of 
1914. 

She  then  was  more  menaced  than  attacked. 
It  was  the  Crown  Prince  and  General  von 
Strantz  with  seven  army  corps  who  threat- 
ened her.  General  Sarrail,  now  commanding 
the  allied  forces  in  Salonika,  with  three  army 
corps,  and  reinforced  by  part  of  an  army 
corps  from  Toul,  directed  the  defense.  The 
attack  was  made  upon  Fort  Troyon,  about 
twenty  miles  south  of  Verdun.  The  fort  was 
destroyed,  but  the  Germans  were  repulsed. 
Four  days  later,  September  24,  the  real  at- 

205 


VERDUN  AND  ST.  MIHIEL 

tack  was  made  fifteen  miles  south  of  Troyon, 
on  the  village  of  St.  Mihiel.  The  object  of 
Von  Strantz  was  to  break  through  the  Ver- 
dun-Toul  line,  to  inclose  Sarrail  from  the 
south  and  at  Revigny  link  arms  with  the 
Crown  Prince.  They  then  would  have  had 
the  army  of  Sarrail  surrounded. 

For  several  days  it  looked  as  though  Von 
Strantz  would  succeed,  but,  though  out- 
numbered, San-ail's  line  held,  and  he  forced 
Von  Strantz  to  "  dig  in  "  at  St.  Mihiel.  There 
he  still  is,  like  a  dagger  that  has  failed  to 
reach  the  heart  but  remains  implanted  in  the 
flesh. 

Von  Strantz  having  failed,  a  week  later, 
on  October  3,  the  Crown  Prince  attacked 
through  the  Forest  of  the  Argonne  between 
Varennes  and  Verdun.  But  this  assault  also 
was  repulsed  by  Sarrail,  who  captured  Va- 
rennes, and  with  his  left  joined  up  with  the 
Fourth  Army  of  General  Langle.  The  line 
as  then  formed  by  that  victory  remained 
much  as  it  is  to-day.  The  present  attack 
is  [directed  neither  to  the  north  nor  south 

206 


VERDUN  AND  ST.  MIHIEL 

of  Verdun,  but  straight  at  the  forts  of  the 
city.  These  forts  form  but  a  part  of  the 
defenses.  For  twenty  miles  in  front  of  Ver- 
dun have  been  spread  trenches  and  barb- 
wire.  In  turn,  these  are  covered  by  artillery 
positions  in  the  woods  and  on  every  height. 
Even  were  a  fort  destroyed,  to  occupy  it  the 
enemy  must  pass  over  a  terrain,  every  foot 
of  which  is  under  fire.  As  the  defense  of 
Verdun  has  been  arranged,  each  of  the  forts 
is  but  a  rallying-poirit  —  a  base.  The  actual 
combat  that  will  decide  the  struggle  will  be 
fought  in  the  open. 

Last  month  I  was  invited  to  one  of  the 
Verdun  forts.  It  now  lies  in'  the  very  path 
of  the  drive,  and  to  describe  it  would  be 
improper.  But  the  approaches  to  it  are 
now  what  every  German  knows.  They  were 
more  impressive  even  than  the  fort.  The 
"glacis"  of  the  fort  stretched  for  a  mile,  and 
as  we  walked  in  the  direction  of  the  German 
trenches  there  was  not  a  moment  when  from 
every  side  French  guns  could  not  have  blown 
us  into  fragments.  They  were  mounted  on 

207 


VERDUN  AND  ST.  MIHIEL 

the  spurs  of  the  hills,  sunk  in  pits,  ambushed 
in  the  thick  pine  woods.  Every  step  forward 
was  made  cautiously  between  trenches,  or 
through  mazes  of  barb-wire  and  iron  hurdles 
with  bayonet-like  spikes.  Even  walking  lei- 
surely you  had  to  watch  your  step.  Pits 
opened  suddenly  at  your  feet,  and  strands 
of  barbed  wire  caught  at  your  clothing. 
Whichever  way  you  looked  trenches  flanked 
you.  They  were  dug  at  every  angle,  and 
were  not  farther  than  fifty  yards  apart. 

On  one  side,  a  half  mile  distant,  was  a 
hill  heavily  wooded.  At  regular  intervals  the 
trees  had  been  cut  down  and  uprooted  and, 
like  a  wood-road,  a  cleared  space  showed. 
These  were  the  nests  of  the  "seventy-fives." 
They  could  sweep  the  approaches  to  the  fort 
as  a  fire-hose  flushes  a  gutter.  That  a  human 
being  should  be  ordered  to  advance  against 
such  pitfalls  and  obstructions,  and  under  the 
fire  from  the  trenches  and  batteries,  seemed 
sheer  murder.  Not  even  a  cat  with  nine  lives 
could  survive. 

208 


VERDUN  AND  ST.  MIHIEL 

The  German  papers  tell  that  before  the 
drive  upon  Verdun  was  launched  the  German 
Emperor  reproduced  the  attack  in  minia- 
ture. The  whereabouts  and  approaches  to 
the  positions  they  were  to  take  were  ex- 
plained to  the  men.  Their  officers  were  re- 
hearsed in  the  part  each  was  to  play.  But 
no  rehearsal  would  teach  a  man  to  avoid 
the  pitfalls  that  surround  Verdun.  The 
open  places  are  as  treacherous  as  quicksands, 
the  forests  that  seem  to  him  to  offer  shelter 
are  a  succession  of  traps.  And  if  he  captures 
one  fort  he  but  brings  himself  under  the  fire 
of  two  others. 

From  what  I  saw  of  the  defenses  of  Verdun 
from  a  "certain  place"  three  miles  outside 
the  city  to  a  "certain  place"  fifteen  miles 
farther  south,  from  what  the  general  com- 
manding the  Verdun  sector  told  me,  and  from 
what  I  know  of  the  French,  I  believe  the 
Crown  Prince  will  find  this  second  attack 
upon  Verdun  a  hundred  per  cent  more  costly 
than  the  first,  and  equally  unsuccessful. 

209 


CHAPTER  X 

WAR  IN  THE  VOSGES 

PARIS,  January,  1916. 

WHEN  speaking  of  their  five  hundred 
_  miles  of  front,  the  French  General 
Staff  divide  it  into  twelve  sectors.  The 
names  of  these  do  not  appear  on  maps. 
They  are  family  names  and  titles,  not  of 
certain  places,  but  of  districts  with  imag- 
inary boundaries.  These  nicknames  seem 
to  thrive  best  in  countries  where  the  same 
race  of  people  have  lived  for  many  cen- 
turies. With  us,  it  is  usually  when  we  speak 
of  mountains,  as  "in  the  Rockies,"  "in  the 
Adirondacks,"  that  under  one  name  we  merge 
rivers,  valleys,  and  villages.  To  know  the 
French  names  for  the  twelve  official  fronts 
may  help  in  deciphering  the  communiques. 
They  are  these: 

Flanders,  the  first  sector,  stretches  from 
210 


WAR  IN  THE  VOSGES 

the  North  Sea  to  beyond  Ypres;  the  Artois 
sector  surrounds  Arras;  the  centre  of  Picardie 
is  Amiens;  Santerre  follows  the  valley  of 
the  Oise;  Soissonais  is  the  sector  that  ex- 
tends from  Soissons  on  the  Aisne  to  the 
Champagne  sector,  which  begins  with  Rheims 
and  extends  southwest  to  include  Chalons; 
Argonne  is  the  forest  of  Argonne;  the  Hautes 
de  Meuse,  the  district  around  Verdun; 
Woevre  lies  between  the  heights  of  the 
Meuse  and  the  River  Moselle;  then  come 
Lorraine,  the  Vosges,  all  hills  and  forests, 
and  last,  Alsace,  the  territory  won  back  from 
the  enemy. 

Of  these  twelve  fronts,  I  was  on  ten.  The 
remaining  two  I  missed  through  leaving 
France  to  visit  the  French  fronts  in  Serbia 
and  Salonika.  According  to  which  front 
you  are  on,  the  trench  is  of  mud,  clay,  chalk, 
sand-bags,  or  cement;  it  is  ambushed  in  gar- 
dens and  orchards,  it  winds  through  flooded 
mud  flats,  is  hidden  behind  the  ruins  of 
wrecked  villages,  and  is  paved  and  rein- 

211 


WAR  IN  THE  VOSGES 

forced  with  the  stones  and  bricks  from  the 
smashed  houses. 

Of  all  the  trenches  the  most  curious  were 
those  of  the  Vosges.  They  were  the  most 
curious  because,  to  use  the  last  word  one 
associates  with  trenches,  they  are  the  most 
beautiful. 

We  started  for  the  trenches  of  the  Vosges 
from  a  certain  place  close  to  the  German 
border.  It  was  so  close  that  in  the  inn  a 
rifle-bullet  from  across  the  border  had  bored 
a  hole  in  the  cafe  mirror. 

The  car  climbed  steadily.  The  swollen 
rivers  flowed  far  below  us,  and  then  disap- 
peared, and  the  slopes  that  fell  away  on 
one  side  of  the  road  and  rose  on  the  other 
became  smothered  under  giant  pines.  Above 
us  they  reached  to  the  clouds,,  below  us 
swept  grandly  across  great  valleys.  There 
was  no  sign  of  human  habitation,  not  even 
the  hut  of  a  charcoal-burner.  Except  for 
the  road  we  might  have  been  the  first  ex- 
plorers of  a  primeval  forest.  We  seemed  as 

212 


WAR  IN  THE  VOSGES 

far  removed  from  the  France  of  cities,  culti- 
vated acres,  stone  bridges,  and  chateaux  as 
Rip  Van  Winkle  lost  in  the  Catskills.  The 
silence  was  the  silence  of  the  ocean. 

We  halted  at  what  might  have  been  a 
lumberman's  camp.  There  were  cabins  of 
huge  green  logs  with  the  moss  still  fresh 
and  clinging,  and  smoke  poured  from  mud 
chimneys.  In  the  air  was  an  enchanting 
odor  of  balsam  and  boiling  coffee.  It  needed 
only  a  man  in  a  Mackinaw  coat  with  an 
axe  to  persuade  us  we  had  motored  from  a 
French  village  ten  hundred  years  old  into 
a  perfectly  new  trading-post  on  the  Sas- 
katchewan. 

But  from  the  lumber  camp  the  colonel  ap- 
peared, and  with  him  in  the  lead  we  started 
up  a  hill  as  sheer  as  a  church  roof.  The 
freshly  cut  path  reached  upward  in  short, 
zigzag  lengths.  Its  outer  edge  was  shored 
with  the  trunks  of  the  trees  cut  down  to 
make  way  for  it.  They  were  fastened  with 
stakes,  and  against  rain  and  snow  helped  to 

213 


WAR  IN  THE  VOSGES 

hold  it  in  place.  The  soil,  as  the  path  showed, 
was  of  a  pink  stone.  It  cuts  easily,  and  is 
the  stone  from  which  cathedrals  have  been 
built.  That  suggests  that  to  an  ambitious 
young  sapling  it  offers  little  nutriment,  but 
the  pines,  at  least,  seem  to  thrive  on  it. 
For  centuries  they  have  thrived  on  it.  They 
towered  over  us  to  the  height  of  eight  stories. 
The  ground  beneath  was  hidden  by  the  most 
exquisite  moss,  and  moss  climbed  far  up  the 
tree  trunks  and  covered  the  branches.  They 
looked,  as  though  to  guard  them  from  the 
cold,  they  had  been  swathed  in  green  velvet. 
Except  for  the  pink  path  we  were  in  a  world 
of  green  —  green  moss,  green  ferns,  green 
tree  trunks,  green  shadows.  The  little  light 
that  reached  from  above  was  like  that  which 
filters  through  the  glass  sides  of  an  aquarium. 
It  was  very  beautiful,  but  was  it  war? 
We  might  have  been  in  the  Adirondacks 
in  the  private  camp  of  one  of  our  men  of 
millions.  You  expected  to  see  the  fire-war- 
den's red  poster  warning  you  to  stamp  out 

214 


WAR  IN  THE  VOSGES 

the  ashes,  and  to  be  careful  where  you  threw 
your  matches.  Then  the  path  dived  into  a 
trench  with  pink  walls,  and,  overhead,  arches 
of  green  branches  rising  higher  and  higher 
until  they  interlocked  and  shut  out  the 
sky.  The  trench  led  to  a  barrier  of  logs  as 
round  as  a  flour-barrel,  the  openings  plugged 
with  moss,  and  the  whole  hidden  in  fresh 
pine  boughs.  It  reminded  you  of  those  open 
barricades  used  in  boar  hunting,  and  behind 
which  the  German  Emperor  awaits  the  on- 
slaught of  thoroughly  terrified  pigs. 

Like  a  bird's  nest  it  clung  to  the  side  of  the 
hill,  and,  across  a  valley,  looked  at  a  sister 
hill  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away. 

"On  that  hill,"  said  the  colonel,  "on  a 
level  with  us,  are  the  Germans." 

Had  he  told  me  that  among  the  pine-trees 
across  the  valley  Santa  Claus  manufactured 
his  toys  and  stabled  his  reindeer  I  would 
have  believed  him.  Had  humpbacked  dwarfs 
with  beards  peeped  from  behind  the  velvet 
tree  trunks  and  doffed  red  nightcaps,  had  we 

215 


WAR  IN  THE  VOSGES 

discovered  fairies  dancing  on  the  moss  carpet, 
the  surprised  ones  would  have  been  the  fairies. 

In  this  enchanted  forest  to  talk  of  Ger- 
mans and  war  was  ridiculous.  We  were 
speaking  in  ordinary  tones,  but  in  the  still- 
ness of  the  woods  our  voices  carried,  and 
from  just  below  us  a  dog  barked. 

"Do  you  allow  the  men  to  bring  dogs  into 
the  trenches?"  I  asked.  "Don't  they  give 
away  your  position?" 

"That  is  not  one  of  our  dogs,"  said  the 
colonel.  "That  is  a  German  sentry  dog. 
He  has  heard  us  talking." 

"But  that  dog  is  not  across  that  valley," 
I  objected.  "He's  on  this  hill.  He's  not 
two  hundred  yards  below  us." 

"But,  yes,  certainly,"  said  the  colonel. 
Of  the  man  on  duty  behind  the  log  barrier 
he  asked: 

"How  near  are  they?" 

"Two  hundred  yards,"  said  the  soldier. 
He  grinned  and,  leaning  over  the  top  log, 
pointed  directly  beneath  us. 

216 


o    — 
o  "8 


WAR  IN  THE  VOSGES 

It  was  as  though  we  were  on  the  roof  of  a 
house  looking  over  the  edge  at  some  one  on 
the  front  steps.  I  stared  down  through  the 
giant  pine-trees  towering  like  masts,  mys- 
terious, motionless,  silent  with  the  silence  of 
centuries.  Through  the  interlacing  boughs 
I  saw  only  shifting  shadows  or,  where  a  shaft 
of  sunlight  fell  upon  the  moss,  a  flash  of  vivid 
green.  Unable  to  believe,  I  shook  my  head. 
Even  the  boche  watchdog,  now  thoroughly 
annoyed,  did  not  convince  me.  As  though 
reading  my  doubts,  an  officer  beckoned, 
and  we  stepped  outside  the  breastworks  and 
into  an  intricate  cat's-cradle  of  barbed  wire. 
It  was  lashed  to  heavy  stakes  and  wound 
around  the  tree  trunks,  and,  had  the  officer 
not  led  the  way,  it  would  have  been  impossible 
for  me  to  get  either  in  or  out.  At  intervals, 
like  clothes  on  a  line,  on  the  wires  were  strung 
empty  tin  cans,  pans  and  pots,  and  glass 
bottles.  To  attempt  to  cross  the  entangle- 
ment would  have  made  a  noise  like  a  ped- 
dler's cart  bumping  over  cobbles. 

217 


WAR  IN  THE  VOSGES 

We  came  to  the  edge  of  the  barb-wire, 
and  what  looked  like  part  of  a  tree  trunk 
turned  into  a  man-sized  bird's  nest.  The 
sentry  in  the  nest  had  his  back  to  us,  and 
was  peering  intently  down  through  the 
branches  of  the  tree  tops.  He  remained  so 
long  motionless  that  I  thought  he  was  not 
aware  of  our  approach.  But  he  had  heard  us. 
Only  it  was  no  part  of  his  orders  to  make  ab- 
rupt movements.  With  infinite  caution,  with 
the  most  considerate  slowness,  he  turned, 
scowled,  and  waved  us  back.  It  was  the  care 
with  which  he  made  even  so  slight  a  ges- 
ture that  persuaded  me  the  Germans  were  as 
close  as  the  colonel  had  said.  My  curiosity 
concerning  them  was  satisfied.  The  sentry 
did  not  need  to  wave  me  back.  I  was  al- 
ready on  my  way. 

At  the  post  of  observation  I  saw  a  dog- 
kennel. 

"There  are  watchdogs  on  our  side,  also?" 
I  said. 

"Yes,"  the  officer  assented  doubtfully. 
218 


WAR  IN  THE  VOSGES 

"The  idea  is  that  their  hearing  is  better  than 
that  of  the  men,  and  in  case  of  night  attacks 
they  will  warn  us.  But  during  the  day  they 
get  so  excited  barking  at  the  boche  dogs 
that  when  darkness  comes,  and  we  need 
them,  they  are  worn-out  and  fall  asleep." 

We  continued  through  the  forest,  and 
wherever  we  went  found  men  at  work  re- 
pairing the  path  and  pushing  the  barb-wire 
and  trenches  nearer  the  enemy.  In  some 
places  they  worked  with  great  caution  as, 
hidden  by  the  ferns,  they  dragged  behind 
them  the  coils  of  wire;  sometimes  they  were 
able  to  work  openly,  and  the  forest  resounded 
with  the  blows  of  axes  and  the  crash  of  a 
falling  tree.  But  an  axe  in  a  forest  does  not 
suggest  war,  and  the  scene  was  still  one  of 
peace  and  beauty. 

For  miles  the  men  had  lined  the  path 
with  borders  of  moss  six  inches  wide,  and 
with  strips  of  bark  had  decorated  the  huts 
and  shelters.  Across  the  tiny  ravines  they 
had  thrown  what  in  seed  catalogues  are 

219 


WAR  IN  THE  VOSGES 

called  "rustic"  bridges.  As  we  walked  in 
single  file  between  these  carefully  laid  bor- 
ders of  moss  and  past  the  shelters  that  sug- 
gested only  a  gamekeeper's  lodge,  we  might 
have  been  on  a  walking  tour  in  the  Alps. 
You  expected  at  every  turn  to  come  upon  a 
chalet  like  a  Swiss  clock,  and  a  patient  cow 
and  a  young  woman  in  a  velvet  bodice  who 
would  offer  you  warm  milk. 

Instead,  from  overhead,  there  burst  sud- 
denly the  barking  of  shrapnel,  and  through 
an  opening  in  the  tree-tops  we  saw  a  French 
biplane  pursued  by  German  shells.  It  was 
late  in  the  afternoon,  but  the  sun  was  still 
shining  and,  entirely  out  of  her  turn,  the 
moon  also  was  shining.  In  the  blue  sky  she 
hung  like  a  silver  shield,  and  toward  her, 
it  seemed  almost  to  her  level,  rose  the  bi- 
plane. 

She  also  was  all  silver.  She  shone  and 
glistened.  Like  a  great  bird,  she  flung  out 
tilting  wings.  The  sun  kissed  them  and 
turned  them  into  flashing  mirrors.  Behind 

220 


WAR  IN  THE  VOSGES 

her  the  German  shells  burst  in  white  puffs 
of  smoke,  feathery,  delicate,  as  innocent- 
looking  as  the  tips  of  ostrich-plumes.  The 
biplane  ran  before  them  and  seemed  to  play 
with  them  as  children  race  up  the  beach 
laughing  at  the  pursuing  waves.  The  bi- 
plane darted  left,  darted  right,  climbed  un- 
seen aerial  trails,  tobogganed  down  vast  im- 
aginary mountains,  or,  as  a  gull  skims  the 
crests  of  the  waves,  dived  into  a  cloud  and 
appeared  again,  her  wings  dripping,  glis- 
tening and  radiant.  As  she  turned  and 
winged  her  way  back  to  France  you  felt  no 
fear  for  her.  She  seemed  beyond  the  power 
of  man  to  harm,  something  supreme,  super- 
human—  a  sister  to  the  sun  and  moon,  the 
princess  royal  of  the  air. 

After  you  have  been  in  the  trenches  it 
seems  so  selfish  to  be  feasting  and  drinking 
that  you  have  no  appetite  for  dinner. 

But  after  a  visit  to  the  defenders  of  the 
forests  of  the  Vosges  you  cannot  feel  selfish. 
Visits  to  their  trenches  do  not  take  away 

221 


WAR  IN  THE  VOSGES 

the  appetite.  They  increase  it.  The  air 
they  breathe  tastes  like  brut  champagne, 
and  gases  cannot  reach  them.  They  sleep 
on  pillows  of  pine  boughs.  They  look  out 
only  on  what  in  nature  is  most  beautiful. 
And  their  surgeon  told  me  there  was  not 
a  single  man  on  the  sick-list.  That  does 
not  mean  there  are  no  killed  or  wounded. 
For  even  in  the  enchanted  forest  there  is 
no  enchantment  strong  enough  to  ward  off 
the  death  that  approaches  crawling  on  the 
velvet  moss,  or  hurtling  through  the  tree- 
tops. 

War  has  no  knowledge  of  sectors.  It  is 
just  as  hateful  in  the  Vosges  as  in  Flanders, 
only  in  the  Vosges  it  masks  its  hideousness 
with  what  is  beautiful.  In  Flanders  death 
hides  in  a  trench  of  mud  like  an  open  grave. 
In  the  forest  of  the  Vosges  it  lurks  in  a  nest 
of  moss,  fern,  and  clean,  sweet-smelling  pine. 


222 


CHAPTER  XI 

HINTS  FOR  THOSE  WHO  WANT  TO 
HELP 

PARIS,  January,  1916. 

AT  home  people  who  read  of  some  splen- 
did act  of  courage  or  self-sacrifice  on 
the  part  of  the  Allies,  are  often  moved  to  ex- 
claim: "I  wish  I  could  help!    I  wish  I  could 
do  something!" 

This  is  to  tell  them  how  easily,  at  what 
bargain  prices,  at  what  little  cost  to  them- 
selves that  wish  can  be  gratified. 

In  the  United  States,  owing  to  the  war, 
many  have  grown  suddenly  rich;  those  al- 
ready wealthy  are  increasing  their  fortunes. 
Here  in  France  the  war  has  robbed  every 
one;  the  rich  are  less  rich,  the  poor  more 
destitute.  Every  franc  any  one  can  spare 
is  given  to  the  government,  to  the  Bank  of 
France,  to  fight  the  enemy  and  to  preserve 
the  country. 

223 


HINTS  FOR  THOSE 

The  calls  made  upon  the  purses  of  the 
people  never  cease,  and  each  appeal  is  so 
worthy  that  it  cannot  be  denied.  In  con- 
sequence, for  the  war  charities  there  is  not 
so  much  money  as  there  was.  People  are 
not  less  willing,  but  have  less  to  give.  So, 
in  order  to  obtain  money,  those  who  ask 
must  appeal  to  the  imagination,  must  show 
why  the  cause  for  which  they  plead  is  the 
most  pressing.  They  advertise  just  which 
men  will  benefit,  and  in  what  way,  whether 
in  blankets,  gloves,  tobacco,  masks,  or  leaves 
of  absence. 

Those  in  charge  of  the  relief  organizations 
have  learned  that  those  who  have  money 
to  give  like  to  pick  and  choose.  A  tale  of 
suffering  that  appeals  to  one,  leaves  another 
cold.  One  gives  less  for  the  wounded  because 
he  thinks  those  injured  in  battle  are  wards 
of  the  state.  But  for  the  children  orphaned 
by  the  war  he  will  give  largely.  So  the 
petitioners  dress  their  shop-windows. 

To  the  charitably  disposed,  and  over  here 
224 


WHO  WANT  TO  HELP 

that  means  every  Frenchman,  they  offer 
bargains.  They  have  "white  sales/'  "fire 
sales."  As,  at  our  expositions,  we  have  spe- 
cial days  named  after  the  different  States, 
they  have  special  days  for  the  Belgians, 
Poles,  and  Serbians. 

For  these  days  they  prepare  long  in  ad- 
vance. Their  approach  is  heralded,  adver- 
tised; all  Paris,  or  it  may  be  the  whole  of 
France,  knows  they  are  coming. 

Christmas  Day  and  the  day  after  were  de- 
voted exclusively  to  the  man  in  the  trenches, 
to  obtain  money  to  bring  him  home  on  leave. 
Those  days  were  les  journees  du  poilu. 

The  services  of  the  best  black-and-white 
artists  in  France  were  commandeered.  For 
advertising  purposes  they  designed  the  most 
appealing  posters.  Unlike  those  issued  by 
our  suffragettes,  calling  attention  to  the  im- 
portance of  November  2,  they  gave  some 
idea  of  what  was  wanted. 

They  did  not  show  Burne- Jones  young 
women  blowing  trumpets.  They  were  not 

225 


HINTS  FOR  THOSE 

symbolical,  or  allegorical;  they  were  homely, 
pathetic,  humorous,  human.  They  were 
aimed  straight  at  the  heart  and  pocketbook. 

They  showed  the  poilu  returning  home  on 
leave,  and  on  surprising  his  wife  or  his  sweet- 
heart with  her  hands  helpless  in  the  wash- 
tub,  kissing  her  on  the  back  of  the  neck.  In 
the  corner  the  dog  danced  on  his  hind  legs, 
barking  joyfully. 

They  showed  the  men  in  the  trenches,  and 
while  one  stood  at  the  periscope  the  other 
opened  their  Christmas  boxes;  they  showed 
father  and  son  shoulder  to  shoulder  march- 
ing through  the  snow,  mud,  and  sleet;  they 
showed  the  old  couple  at  home  with  no  fire 
in  the  grate,  saying:  "It  is  cold  for  us,  but 
not  so  cold  as  for  our  son  in  the  trench." 

For  every  contribution  to  this  Christmas 
fund  those  who  gave  received  a  decoration. 
According  to  the  sum,  these  ran  from  paper 
badges  on  a  pin  to  silver  and  gold  medals. 

The  whole  of  France  contributed  to  this 
fund.  The  proudest  shops  filled  their  win- 

226 


WHO  WANT  TO  HELP 

dows  with  the  paper  badges,  and  so  well  was 
the  fund  organized  that  in  every  town  and 
city  petitioners  in  the  streets  waylaid  every 
pedestrian. 

Even  in  Modena,  on  the  boundary-line 
of  Italy,  when  I  was  returning  to  France, 
and  sharing  a  lonely  Christmas  with  the 
conductor  of  the  wagon-lit,  we  were  held  up 
by  train-robbers,  who  took  our  money  and 
then  pinned  medals  on  us. 

Until  we  reached  Paris  we  did  not  know 
why.  It  was  only  later  we  learned  that  in 
the  two  days'  campaign  the  poilus  was  bene- 
fited to  the  sum  of  many  millions  of  francs. 

In  Paris  and  over  all  France,  for  every 
one  is  suffering  through  the  war,  there  is 
some  individual  or  organization  at  work  to 
relieve  that  suffering.  Every  one  helps,  and 
the  spirit  in  which  they  help  is  most  won- 
derful and  most  beautiful.  No  one  is  for- 
gotten. 

When  the  French  artists  were  called  to 
the  front,  the  artists'  models  of  the  Place 

227 


HINTS  FOR  THOSE 

Pigalle  and  Montmartre  were  left  destitute. 
They  had  not  "put  by."  They  were  butter- 
flies. 

So  some  women  of  the  industrious,  busy- 
bee  order  formed  a  society  to  look  after  the 
artists'  models.  They  gave  them  dolls  to 
dress,  and  on  the  sale  of  dolls  the  human 
manikins  now  live. 

Nor  is  any  one  who  wants  to  help  allowed 
to  feel  that  he  or  she  is  too  poor;  that  for  his 
sou  or  her  handiwork  there  is  no  need. 
The  midinettes,  the  "cash"  girls  of  the  great 
department  stores  and  millinery  shops,  had 
no  money  to  contribute,  so  some  one  thought 
of  giving  them  a  chance  to  help  the  soldiers 
with  their  needles. 

It  was  purposed  they  should  make  cock- 
ades in  the  national  colors.  Every  French 
girl  is  taught  to  sew;  each  is  born  with  good 
taste.  They  were  invited  to  show  their  good 
taste  in  the  designing  of  cockades,  which 
people  would  buy  for  a  franc,  which  franc 
would  be  sent  to  some  soldier. 

228 


L'Oeuvre  ._  ^  . 
cle  lg  permission    du   toilu 

des     Regions     envawies 


t    Us    iS^estaurateups  .  jimonac/i 
et    [jotelicrs     parisiens 


iers 


A  poster  inviting  the  proprietors  of  restaurants  and  hotels  and  their 
guests  to  welcome  the  soldiers  who  have  permission  to  visit 
Paris,  especially  those  who  come  from  the  districts  invaded  by 
the  Germans. 


WHO  WANT  TO  HELP 

The  French  did  not  go  about  this  in  a 
hole-in-a-corner  way  in  a  back  street.  They 
did  not  let  the  "cash"  girl  feel  her  artistic 
effort  was  only  a  blind  to  help  her  help 
others.  They  held  a  "salon"  for  the  cock- 
ades. 

And  they  held  it  in  the  same  Palace  of 
Art,  where  at  the  annual  salon  are  hung 
the  paintings  of  the  great  French  artists. 
The  cockades  are  exhibited  in  one  hall,  and 
next  to  them  is  an  exhibition  of  the  precious 
tapestries  rescued  from  the  Rheims  cathedral. 

In  the  hall  beyond  that  is  an  exhibition 
of  lace.  To  this,  museums,  duchesses,  and 
queens  have  sent  laces  that  for  centuries 
have  been  family  heirlooms.  But  the  cock- 
ades of  Mimi  Pinson  by  the  thousands  and 
thousands  are  given  just  as  much  space,  are 
arranged  with  the  same  taste  and  by  the 
same  artist  who  grouped  and  catalogued  the 
queens'  lace  handkerchiefs. 

And  each  little  Mimi  Pinson  can  go  to 
the  palace  and  point  to  the  cockade  she 

229 


HINTS  FOR  THOSE 

made  with  her  own  fingers,  or  point  to  the 
spot  where  it  was,  and  know  she  has  sent  a 
franc  to  a  soldier  of  France. 

These  days  the  streets  of  Paris  are  filled 
with  soldiers,  each  of  whom  has  given  to 
France  some  part  of  his  physical  self.  That 
his  country  may  endure,  that  she  may  con- 
tinue to  enjoy  and  teach  liberty,  he  has 
seen  his  arm  or  his  leg,  or  both,  blown  off, 
or  cut  off.  But  when  on  the  boulevards  you 
meet  him  walking  with  crutches  or  with  an 
empty  sleeve  pinned  beneath  his  Cross  of 
War,  and  he  thinks  your  glance  is  one  of 
pity,  he  resents  it.  He  holds  his  head  more 
stiffly  erect.  He  seems  to  say:  "I  know  how 
greatly  you  envy  me !" 

And  who  would  dispute  him?  Long  after 
the  war  is  ended,  so  long  as  he  lives,  men 
and  women  of  France  will  honor  him,  and  in 
their  eyes  he  will  read  their  thanks.  But 
there  is  one  soldier  who  cannot  read  their 
thanks,  who  is  spared  the  sight  of  their 
pity.  He  is  the  one  who  has  made  all  but 

230 


WHO  WANT  TO  HELP 

the  supreme  sacrifice.  He  is  the  one  who  is 
blind.  He  sits  in  perpetual  darkness.  You 
can  remember  certain  nights  that  seemed  to 
stretch  to  doomsday,  when  sleep  was  with- 
held and  you  tossed  and  lashed  upon  the 
pillow,  praying  for  the  dawn.  Imagine  a 
night  of  such  torture  dragged  out  over  many 
years,  with  the  dreadful  knowledge  that 
the  dawn  will  never  come.  Imagine  Paris 
with  her  bridges,  palaces,  parks,  with  the 
Seine,  the  Tuileries,  the  boulevards,  the 
glittering  shop-windows  conveyed  to  you 
only  through  noise.  Only  through  the  shrieks 
of  motor-horns  and  the  shuffling  of  feet. 

The  men  who  have  been  blinded  in  battle 
have  lost  more  than  sight.  They  have  been 
robbed  of  their  independence.  They  feel 
they  are  a  burden.  It  is  not  only  the  physical 
loss  they  suffer,  but  the  thought  that  no 
longer  are  they  of  use,  that  they  are  a  care, 
that  in  the  scheme  of  things  —  even  in  their 
own  little  circles  of  family  and  friends  — 
there  is  for  them  no  place.  It  is  not  unfair 

231 


HINTS  FOR  THOSE 

to  the  poilu  to  say  that  the  officer  who  is 
blinded  suffers  more  than  the  private.  As 
a  rule,  he  is  more  highly  strung,  more  widely 
educated;  he  has  seen  more;  his  experience 
of  the  world  is  broader;  he  has  more  to  lose. 
Before  the  war  he  may  have  been  a  lawyer, 
doctor,  man  of  many  affairs.  For  him  it 
is  harder  than,  for  example,  the  peasant  to 
accept  a  future  of  unending  blackness  spent 
in  plaiting  straw  or  weaving  rag  carpets. 
Under  such  conditions  life  no  longer  tempts 
him.  Instead,  death  tempts  him,  and  the 
pistol  seems  very  near  at  hand. 

It  was  to  save  men  of  the  officer  class 
from  despair  and  from  suicide,  to  make  them 
know  that  for  them  there  still  was  a  life  of 
usefulness,  work,  and  accomplishment,  that 
there  was  organized  in  France  the  Com- 
mittee for  Men  Blinded  in  Battle.  The 
idea  was  to  bring  back  to  officers  who  had 
lost  their  sight,  courage,  hope,  and  a  sense 
of  independence,  to  give  them  work  not 
merely  mechanical  but  more  in  keeping  with 

232 


26>  26 
Dece  mbre 
.19 

' 


All  over  France,  on  Christmas  Day  and  the  day  after,  money  was 
collected  to  send  comforts  and  things  good  to  eat  to  the  men 
at  the  front. 


WHO  WANT  TO  HELP 

their  education  and  intelligence.  The  Presi- 
dent of  France  is  patron  of  the  society,  and 
on  its  committees  in  Paris  and  New  York 
are  many  distinguished  names.  The  French 
Government  has  promised  a  house  near  Paris 
where  the  blind  soldiers  may  be  educated. 
When  I  saw  them  they  were  in  temporary 
quarters  in  the  Hotel  de  Crillon,  lent  to  them 
by  the  proprietor.  They  had  been  gathered 
from  hospitals  in  different  parts  of  France 
by  Miss  Winifred  Holt,  who  for  years  has 
been  working  for  the  blind  in  her  Lighthouse 
in  New  York.  She  is  assisted  in  the  work 
in  Paris  by  Mrs.  Peter  Cooper  Hewitt.  The 
officers  were  brought  to  the  Crillon  by  French 
ladies,  whose  duty  it  was  to  guide  them 
through  the  streets.  Some  of  them  also 
were  their  instructors,  and  in  order  to  teach 
them  to  read  and  write  with  their  fingers 
had  themselves  learned  the  Braille  alphabet. 
This  requires  weeks  of  very  close  and  patient 
study.  And  no  nurse's  uniform  goes  with 
it.  But  the  reward  was  great. 

233 


HINTS  FOR  THOSE 

It  was  evident  in  the  alert  and  eager  in- 
terest of  the  men  who,  perhaps,  only  a  week 
before  had  wished  to  "curse  God,  and  die." 
But  since  then  hope  had  returned  to  each 
of  them,  and  he  had  found  a  door  open,  and 
a  new  life. 

And  he  was  facing  it  with  the  same  or 
with  even  a  greater  courage  than  that  with 
which  he  had  led  his  men  into  the  battle 
that  blinded  him.  Some  of  the  officers  were 
modelling  in  clay,  others  were  learning  type- 
writing, one  with  a  drawing-board  was  study- 
ing to  be  an  architect,  others  were  pressing 
their  finger-tips  over  the  raised  letters  of 
the  Braille  alphabet. 

Opposite  each  officer,  on  the  other  side  of 
the  table,  sat  a  woman  he  could  not  see. 
She  might  be  young  and  beautiful,  as  many 
of  them  were.  She  might  be  white-haired 
and  a  great  lady  bearing  an  ancient  title, 
from  the  faubourg  across  the  bridges,  but  he 
heard  only  a  voice. 

The  voice  encouraged  his  progress,  or 
234 


WHO  WANT  TO  HELP 

corrected  his  mistakes,  and  a  hand,  de- 
tached and  descending  from  nowhere,  guided 
his  hand,  gently,  as  one  guides  the  fingers 
of  a  child.  The  officer  was  again  a  child. 
In  life  for  the  second  time  he  was  beginning 
with  A,  B,  and  C.  The  officer  was  tall, 
handsome,  and  deeply  sunburned.  In  his 
uniform  of  a  chasseur  d'Afrique  he  was  a 
splendid  figure.  On  his  chest  were  the 
medals  of  the  campaigns  in  Morocco  and 
Algiers,  and  the  crimson  ribbon  of  the  Legion 
of  Honor.  The  officer  placed  his  forefinger 
on  a  card  covered  with  raised  hieroglyphics. 

"N,"  he  announced. 

"No,"  the  voice  answered  him. 

"M?"  His  tone  did  not  carry  convic- 
tion. 

"You  are  guessing,"  accused  the  voice. 
The  officer  was  greatly  confused. 

"No,  no,  mademoiselle!"  he  protested. 
"Truly,  I  thought  it  was  an  'M.'  " 

He  laughed  guiltily.  The  laugh  shook 
you.  You  saw  all  that  he  could  never  see: 

235 


HINTS  FOR  THOSE 

inside  the  room  the  great  ladies  and  latest 
American  countesses,  eager  to  help,  forget- 
ful of  self,  full  of  wonderful,  womanly  sym- 
pathy; and  outside,  the  Place  de  la  Concorde, 
the  gardens  of  the  Tuileries,  the  trees  of  the 
Champs  Elysees,  the  sun  setting  behind  the 
gilded  dome  of  the  Invalides.  All  these  were 
lost  to  him,  and  yet  as  he  sat  in  the  darkness, 
because  he  could  not  tell  an  N  from  an  M, 
he  laughed,  and  laughed  happily.  From 
where  did  he  draw  his  strength  and  courage  ? 
Was  it  the  instinct  for  life  that  makes  a 
drowning  man  fight  against  an  ocean?  Was 
it  his  training  as  an  officer  of  the  Grande 
Armee?  Was  it  that  spirit  of  the  French 
that  is  the  one  thing  no  German  knows, 
and  no  German  can  ever  break?  Or  was  it 
the  sound  of  a  woman's  voice  and  the  touch 
of  a  woman's  hand?  If  the  reader  wants  to 
contribute  something  to  help  teach  a  new 
profession  to  these  gentlemen,  who  in  the 
fight  for  civilization  have  contributed  their 
eyesight,  write  to  the  secretary  of  the  com- 

236 


JOURNEEouPOILU 


irNOVEMBRE 


ORGAN  ISEE  PAR  LE  PARLEM  ENT 


A  poster  advertising  the  fund  to  bring  from  the  trenches  "permSs- 
sionaires,"  those  soldiers  who  obtain  permission  to  return  home 
for  six  days. 


WHO  WANT  TO  HELP 

mittee,   Mrs.   Peter  Cooper  Hewitt,   Hotel 
Ritz,  Paris. 

There  are  some  other  very  good  bargains. 
Are  you  a  lover  of  art,  and  would  you  be- 
come a  patron  of  art?  If  that  is  your  wish, 
you  can  buy  an  original  water-color  for  fifty 
cents,  and  so  help  an  art  student  who  is  fight- 
ing at  the  front,  and  assist  in  keeping  alive  his 
family  in  Paris.  Is  not  that  a  good  bargain  ? 

r 

As  everybody  knows,  the  Ecole  des  Beaux- 
Arts  in  Paris  is  free  to  students  from  all 
the  world.  It  is  the  alma  mater  of  some  of 
the  best-known  American  artists  and  archi- 
tects. On  its  rolls  are  the  names  of  Sargent, 
St.  Gaudens,  Stanford  White,  Whitney  War- 
ren, Beckwith,  Coffin,  MacMonnies. 

Certain  schools  and  colleges  are  so  for- 
tunate as  to  inspire  great  devotion  on  the 
part  of  their  students,  as,  in  the  story  told 
of  every  college,  of  the  student  being  led 
from  the  football  field,  who  struggles  in 
front  of  the  grand  stand  and  shouts:  "Let 

me  go  back.    I'd  die  for  dear  old " 

237 


HINTS  FOR  THOSE 

But  the  affection  of  the  students  of  the 
Beaux-Arts  for  their  masters,  their  fellow 
students  and  the  institution  is  very  genuine. 

They  do  not  speak  of  the  distinguished 
artists,  architects,  engravers,  and  sculptors 
who  instruct  them  as  "Doc,"  or  "Prof." 
Instead  they  call  him  "master,"  and  no 
matter  how  often  they  say  it,  they  say  it 
each  time  as  though  they  meant  it. 

The  American  students,  even  when  they 
return  to  Paris  rich  and  famous,  go  at  once 
to  call  upon  the  former  master  of  their  atelier, 
who,  it  may  be,  is  not  at  all  famous  or  rich, 
and  pay  their  respects. 

And,  no  matter  if  his  school  of  art  has 
passed,  and  the  torch  he  carried  is  in  the 
hands  of  younger  Frenchmen,  his  former 
pupils  still  salute  him  as  master,  and  with 
much  the  same  awe  as  the  village  cure  shows 
for  the  cardinal. 

When  the  war  came  3,000  of  the  French 
students  of  the  Beaux-Arts,  past  and  pres- 
ent, were  sent  to  the  front,  and  there  was 

238 


WHO  WANT  TO  HELP 

no  one  to  look  after  their  parents,  families, 
or  themselves,  it  seemed  a  chance  for  Ameri- 
cans to  try  to  pay  back  some  of  the  debt  so 
many  generations  of  American  artists,  ar- 
chitects, and  sculptors  owed  to  the  art  of 
France. 

Whitney  Warren,  the  American  architect, 
is  one  of  the  few  Americans  who,  in  spite  of 
the  extreme  unpopularity  of  our  people,  is 
still  regarded  by  the  French  with  genuine 
affection.  And  in  every  way  possible  he 
tries  to  show  the  French  that  it  is  not  the 
American  people  who  are  neutral,  but  the 
American  Government. 

One  of  the  ways  he  offers  to  Americans 
to  prove  their  friendship  for  France  is  in 
helping  the  students  of  the  Beaux-Arts.  He 
has  organized  a  committee  of  French  and 
American  students  which  works  twelve  hours 
a  day  in  the  palace  of  the  Beaux- Arts  itself, 
on  the  left  bank  of  the  Seine. 

It  is  hard  to  understand  how  in  such  sur- 
roundings they  work,  not  all  day,  but  at 

239 


HINTS  FOR  THOSE 

all.  The  rooms  were  decorated  in  the  time 
of  the  first  Napoleon;  the  ceilings  and  walls 
are  white  and  gold,  and  in  them  are  inserted 
paintings  and  panels.  The  windows  look 
into  formal  gardens  and  courts  filled  with 
marble  statues  and  busts,  bronze  medallions 
and  copies  of  frescoes  brought  from  Athens 
and  Rome.  In  this  atmosphere  the  students 
bang  typewriters,  fold  blankets,  nail  boxes, 
sort  out  woollen  gloves,  cigarettes,  loaves  of 
bread,  and  masks  against  asphyxiating  gas. 
The  mask  they  send  to  the  front  was  in- 
vented by  Francis  Jacques,  of  Harvard,  one 
of  the  committee,  and  has  been  approved 
by  the  French  Government. 

There  is  a  department  which  sends  out 
packages  to  the  soldiers  in  the  trenches,  to 
those  who  are  prisoners,  and  to  the  soldiers 
in  the  hospitals.  There  is  a  system  of  de- 
mand cards  on  which  is  a  list  of  what  the 
committee  is  able  to  supply.  In  the  trenches 
the  men  mark  the  particular  thing  they  want 
and  return  the  card.  The  things  most  in  de- 

240 


WHO  WANT  TO  HELP 

mand  seem  to  be  corn-cob  pipes  and  tobacco 
from  America,  sketch-books,  and  small  boxes 
of  water-colors. 

The  committee  also  edits  and  prints  a 
monthly  magazine.  It  is  sent  to  those  at 
the  front,  and  gives  them  news  of  their  fellow 
students,  and  is  illustrated,  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  add,  with  remarkable  talent  and 
humor.  It  is  printed  by  hand.  The  com- 
mittee also  supplies  the  students  with  post- 
cards on  which  the  students  paint  pictures 
in  water-colors  and  sign  them.  Every  student 
and  ex-student,  even  the  masters  paint  these 
pictures.  Some  of  them  are  very  valuable. 
At  two  francs  fifty  centimes  the  autograph 
alone  is  a  bargain.  In  many  cases  your 
fifty  cents  will  not  only  make  you  a  patron 
of  art,  but  it  may  feed  a  very  hungry  family. 
Write  to  Ronald  Simmons  or  Cyrus  Thomas, 

? 

Ecole  des  Beaux-Arts,  17  Quai  Malaquais. 

There  is  another  very  good  bargain,  and 
extremely  cheap.  Would  you  like  to  lift  a 
man  bodily  out  of  the  trenches,  and  for  six 

241 


HINTS  FOR  THOSE 

days  not  only  remove  him  from  the  imme- 
diate proximity  of  asphyxiating  gas,  shells, 
and  bullets,  but  land  him,  of  all  places  to  a 
French  soldier  the  most  desired,  in  Paris? 
Not  only  land  him  there,  but  for  six  days 
feed  and  lodge  him,  and  give  him  a  present 
to  take  away?  It  will  cost  you  fifteen  francs, 
or  three  dollars.  If  so,  write  to  Journal  des 
Restaurateurs,  24  Rue  Richelieu,  Paris. 

In  Paris,  we  hear  that  on  Wall  Street  there 
are  some  very  fine  bargains.  We  hear  that 
in  gambling  in  war  brides  and  ammunition 
everybody  is  making  money.  Very  little  of 
that  money  finds  its  way  to  France.  Some 
day  I  may  print  a  list  of  the  names  of  those 
men  in  America  who  are  making  enormous 
fortunes  out  of  this  war,  and  who  have  not 
contributed  to  any  charity  or  fund  for  the 
relief  of  the  wounded  or  of  their  families. 
If  you  don't  want  your  name  on  that  list 
you  might  send  money  to  the  American 
Ambulance  at  Neuilly,  or  to  any  of  the 
6,300  hospitals  in  France,  to  the  clearing- 

242 


WHO  WANT  TO  HELP 

house,  through  H.  H.  Harjes,  31  Boulevard 
Haussman,  or  direct  to  the  American  Red 
Cross. 

Or  if  you  want  to  help  the  orphans  of 
soldiers  killed  in  battle  write  to  August  F. 
Jaccaci,  Hotel  de  Crillon;  if  you  want  to 
help  the  families  of  soldiers  rendered  home- 
less by  this  war,  to  the  Secours  National 
through  Mrs.  Whitney  Warren,  16  West 
Forty-Seventh  Street,  New  York;  if  you 
want  to  clothe  a  French  soldier  against  the 
snows  of  the  Vosges  send  him  a  Lafayette 
kit.  In  the  clearing-house  in  Paris  I  have 
seen  on  file  20,000  letters  from  French  soldiers 
asking  for  this  kit.  Some  of  them  were  ad- 
dressed to  the  Marquis  de  Lafayette,  but  the 
clothes  will  get  to  the  front  sooner  if  you 
forward  two  dollars  to  the  Lafayette  Kit 
Fund,  Hotel  Vanderbilt,  New  York.  If  you 
want  to  help  the  Belgian  refugees,  address 
Mrs.  Herman  Harjes,  Hotel  de  Crillon,  Paris; 
if  the  Serbian  refugees,  address  Monsieur 
Vesnitch,  the  Serbian  minister  to  France. 

243 


HINTS  FOR  THOSE  WHO  WANT  TO  HELP 

If  among  these  bargains  you  cannot  find 
one  to  suit  you,  you  should  consult  your 
doctor.  Tell  him  there  is  something  wrong 
with  your  heart. 


244 


CHAPTER  XII 

LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

February,  1916. 

A  YEAR  ago  you  could  leave  the  Conti- 
nent and  enter  England  by  showing  a 
passport  and  a :  steamer  ticket.  To-day  it 
is  as  hard  to  leave  Paris,  and  no  one  ever 
wants  to  leave  Paris,  as  to  get  out  of  jail; 
as  difficult  to  invade  England  as  for  a  rich 
man  to  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  To 
leave  Paris  for  London  you  must  obtain  the 
permission  of  the  police,  the  English  consul- 
general,  and  the  American  consul-general. 
That  gets  you  only  to  Havre.  The  Paris 
train  arrives  at  Havre  at  nine  o'clock  at 
night,  and  while  the  would-be  passengers 
for  the  Channel  boat  to  Southampton  are 
waiting  to  be  examined,  they  are  kept  on 
the  wharf  in  a  goods-shed.  An  English  ser- 
geant hands  each  of  them  a  ticket  with  a 

245 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

number,  and  when  the  number  is  called  the 
passenger  enters  a  room  on  the  shed  where 
French  and  English  officials  put  him,  or  her, 
through  a  third  degree.  The  examination  is 
more  or  less  severe,  and  sometimes  the  pas- 
senger is  searched. 

There  is  nothing  on  the  wharf  to  eat  or 
drink,  and  except  trunks  nothing  on  which 
to  sit.  If  you  prefer  to  be  haughty  and 
stand,  there  is  no  law  against  that.  Should 
you  leave  the  shed  for  a  stroll,  you  would 
gain  nothing,  for,  as  it  is  war-time,  at  nine 
o'clock  every  restaurant  and  cafe  in  Havre 
closes,  and  the  town  is  so  dark  you  would 
probably  stroll  into  the  harbor. 

So,  like  emigrants  on  our  own  Ellis  Island, 
English  and  French  army  and  navy  officers, 
despatch  bearers,  American  ambulance  driv- 
ers, Red  Cross  nurses,  and  all  the  other 
picturesque  travellers  of  these  interesting 
times,  shiver,  yawn,  and  swear  from  nine 
o'clock  until  midnight.  To  make  it  harder, 
the  big  steamer  that  is  to  carry  you  across 

246 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

the  Channel  is  drawn  up  to  the  wharf  not 
forty  feet  way,  all  lights  and  warmth  and 
cleanliness.  At  least  ten  men  assured  me 
they  would  return  to  Havre  and  across  the 
street  from  the  examination-shed  start  an 
all-night  restaurant.  After  a  very  few  min- 
utes of  standing  around  in  the  rain  it  was  a 
plan  to  get  rich  quick  that  would  have  oc- 
curred to  almost  any  one. 

My  number  was  forty-three.  After  seeing 
only  five  people  in  one  hour  pass  through  the 
examination-room,  I  approached  a  man  of 
proud  bearing,  told  him  I  was  a  detective, 
and  that  I  had  detected  he  was  from  Scot- 
land Yard.  He  looked  anxiously  at  his  feet. 

"How  did  you  detect  that?"  he  asked. 

"Your  boots  are  all  right,"  I  assured  him. 
"It's  the  way  you  stand  with  your  hands 
behind  your  back." 

By  shoving  his  hands  into  his  pockets  he 
disguised  himself,  and  asked  what  I  wanted. 
I  wanted  to  be  put  through  the  torture- 
chamber  ahead  of  all  the  remaining  pas- 

247 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

sengers.  He  asked  why  he  should  do  that. 
I  showed  him  the  letter  that,  after  weeks  of 
experiment,  I  found  of  all  my  letters,  was 
the  one  that  produced  the  quickest  results. 
It  is  addressed  vaguely,  "To  His  Majesty's 
Officers."  I  call  it  Exhibit  A. 

I  explained  that  for  purposes  of  getting 
me  out  of  the  goods-shed  and  on  board  the 
steamer  he  could  play  he  was  one  of  his 
Majesty's  officers.  The  idea  pleased  him. 
He  led  me  into  the  examination-room,  where, 
behind  a  long  table,  like  inspectors  in  a  vot- 
ing-booth on  election  day,  sat  French  police 
officials,  officers  of  the  admiralty,  army, 
consular,  and  secret  services.  Some  were 
in  uniform,  some  in  plain  clothes.  From 
above,  two  arc-lights  glared  down  upon  them 
and  on  the  table  covered  with  papers. 

In  two  languages  they  were  examining  a 
young  Englishwoman  who  was  pale,  ill,  and 
obviously  frightened. 

"What  is  your  purpose  in  going  to  Lon- 
don?" asked  the  French  official. 

248 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

"To  join  my  children." 

To  the  French  official  it  seemed  a  good 
answer.  As  much  as  to  say:  "Take  the 
witness,"  he  bowed  to  his  English  colleagues. 

"If  your  children  are  in  London,"  de- 
manded one,  "  what  are  you  doing  in  France  ?  " 

"I  have  been  at  Amiens,  nursing  my  hus- 
band." 

"Amiens  is  inside  our  lines.  Who  gave 
you  permission  to  remain  inside  our  lines?" 

The  woman  fumbled  with  some  papers. 

"I  have  a  letter,"  she  stammered. 

The  officer  scowled  at  the  letter.  Out 
of  the  corner  of  his  mouth  he  said:  "Permit 
from  the  'W.  O.'  Husband,  Captain  in  the 
Berkshires.  Wounded  at  La  Bassee." 

He  was  already  scratching  his  vise  upon 
her  passport.  As  he  wrote,  he  said,  cor- 
dially: "I  hope  your  husband  is  all  right 
again."  The  woman  did  not  reply.  So 
long  was  she  in  answering  that  they  looked 
up  at  her.  She  was  chilled  with  waiting  in 
the  cold  rain.  She  had  been  on  a  strain,  and 

249 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

her  lips  began  to  tremble.  To  hide  that  fact, 
and  with  no  intention  of  being  dramatic,  she 
raised  her  hand,  and  over  her  face  dropped 
a  black  veil. 

The  officer  half  rose. 

"You  should  have  told  us  at  once,  mad- 
am," he  said.  He  jerked  his  head  at  the 
detective  and  toward  the  door,  and  the 
detective  picked  up  her  valise,  and  asked 
her  please  to  follow.  At  the  door  she  looked 
back,  and  the  row  of  officials,  like  one  man, 
bent  forward. 

One  of  them  was  engaged  in  studying  my 
passport.  It  had  been  viseed  by  the  rep- 
resentatives of  all  the  civilized  powers,  and 
except  the  Germans  and  their  fellow  gun- 
men, most  of  the  uncivilized.  The  officer  was 
fascinated  with  it.  Like  a  jig-saw  puzzle,  it 
appealed  to  him.  He  turned  it  wrong  side 
up  and  sideways,  and  took  so  long  about  it 
that  the  others,  hoping  there  was  something 
wrong,  in  anticipation  scowled  at  me.  But 
the  officer  disappointed  them. 

250 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

"Very  interestin',"  he  said.  "You  ought 
to  frame  it." 

Now  that  I  was  free  to  leave  the  detention 
camp  I  perversely  felt  a  desire  to  remain. 
Now  that  I  was  free,  the  sight  of  all  the 
other  passengers  kicking  each  other's  heels 
and  being  herded  by  Tommies  gave  me  a 
feeling  of  infinite  pleasure.  I  tried  to  ex- 
press this  by  forcing  money  on  the  detective, 
but  he  absolutely  refused  it.  So,  instead,  I 
offered  to  introduce  him  to  a  King's  mes- 
senger. We  went  in  search  of  the  King's 
messenger.  I  was  secretly  alarmed  lest  he 
had  lost  himself.  Since  we  had  left  the  Bal- 
kans together  he  had  lost  nearly  everything 
else.  He  had  set  out  as  fully  equipped  as 
the  white  knight,  or  a  "temp.  sec.  lieuten- 
ant." But  his  route  was  marked  with  lost 
trunks,  travelling-bags,  hat-boxes,  umbrellas, 
and  receipts  for  reservations  on  steamships, 
railroad-trains,  in  wagon-lits,  and  dining-cars. 

A  King's  messenger  has  always  been  to 
me  a  fascinating  figure.  In  fiction  he  is 

251 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

resourceful,  daring,  ubiquitous.  He  shows 
his  silver  staff,  with  its  running  greyhound, 
which  he  inherits  from  the  days  of  Henry 
VIII,  and  all  men  must  bow  before  it.  To 
speed  him  on  his  way,  railroad-carriages  are 
emptied,  special  trains  are  thrown  together, 
steamers  cast  off  only  when  he  arrives.  So 
when  I  found  for  days  I  was  to  travel  in 
company  with  a  King's  messenger  I  fore- 
saw a  journey  of  infinite  ease  and  comfort. 
It  would  be  a  royal  progress.  His  ever-pres- 
ent, but  invisible,  staff  of  secret  agents 
would  protect  me.  I  would  share  his  special 
trains,  his  suites  of  deck  cabins.  But  it  was 
not  like  that.  My  King's  messenger  was 
not  that  kind  of  a  King's  messenger.  In- 
deed, when  he  left  the  Levant,  had  it  not 
been  for  the  man  from  Cook's,  he  would 
never  have  found  his  way  from  the  hotel  to 
the  right  railroad-station.  And  that  he  now 
is  safely  in  London  is  because  at  Patras  we 
rescued  him  from  a  boatman  who  had  placed 
him  unresisting  on  a  steamer  for  Australia. 

252 


«l^l^ 


; 


» 
. 


"Very  interestin'.     You  ought  to  frame  it." 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

I  pointed  him  out  to  the  detective.  He 
recalled  him  as  the  gentleman  who  had 
blocked  the  exit  gate  at  the  railroad-station. 
I  suggested  that  that  was  probably  because 
he  had  lost  his  ticket. 

"Lost  his  ticket!  A  King's  messenger!" 
The  detective  was  indignant  with  me.  "Im- 
possible, sir!" 

I  told  him  the  story  of  the  drunken  bands- 
man returning  from  the  picnic.  "You  can't 
have  lost  your  ticket,"  said  the  guard. 

"Can't  I?"  exclaimed  the  bandsman  tri- 
umphantly. "I've  lost  the  bass-drum!" 

Scotland  Yard  reproved  the  K.  M.  with 
deference,  but  severely. 

"You  should  have  told  us  at  once,  sir," 
he  said,  "that  you  were  carrying  despatches. 
If  you'd  only  shown  your  credentials,  we'd 
had  you  safe  on  board  two  hours  ago." 

The  King's  messenger  blushed  guiltily. 
He  looked  as  though  he  wanted  to  run. 

"Don't  tell  me,"  I  cried,  "you've  lost 
your  credentials,  too!" 

253 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

"Don't  be  an  ass !"  cried  the  K.  M.  "I've 
mislaid  them,  that's  all." 

The  detective  glared  at  him  as  though  he 
would  enjoy  leading  him  to  the  moat  in  the 
tower. 

"You've  been  robbed!"  he  gasped. 

"Have  you  looked,"  I  asked,  "in  the  un- 
likely places  ?" 

"I  always  look  there  first,"  explained  the 
K.  M. 

"Look  again,"  commanded  the  detective. 

Unhappily,  the  K.  M.  put  his  hand  in 
his  inside  coat  pocket  and,  with  intense 
surprise,  as  though  he  had  performed  a  con- 
juring trick,  produced  a  paper  that  creaked 
and  crinkled. 

"That's  it!"  he  cried. 

"You  come  with  me,"  commanded  Scot- 
land Yard,  "before  you  lose  it  again." 

Two  nights  later,  between  the  acts  at 
a  theatre,  I  met  a  young  old  friend.  Twenty 
years  before  we  had  made  a  trip  through 
Central  America  and  Venezuela.  To  my 

254 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

surprise,  for  I  had  known  him  in  other  wars, 
he  was  not  in  khaki,  but  in  white  waistcoat 
and  lawn  tie  and  tail-coat.  He  looked  as 
though  he  had  on  his  hand  nothing  more 
serious  than  money  and  time.  I  complained 
that  we  had  not  met  since  the  war. 

"It's  a  chance,  our  meeting  to-night," 
he  said,  "for  I  start  for  Cairo  in  the  morning. 
I  left  the  Dardanelles  last  Wednesday  and 
arrived  here  only  to-day. " 

"Wednesday!"  I  exclaimed.  "How  could 
you  do  it?" 

"Torpedo-boat  from  Moudros  to  Malta," 
he  explained,  "transport  to  Marseilles,  troop 
train  to  Calais,  and  there  our  people  shot 
me  across  the  Channel  on  a  hospital  ship. 
Then  I  got  a  special  to  town." 

"You  are  a  swell!"  I  gasped.  "What's 
your  rank?" 

"Captain." 

That  did  not  explain  it. 

"What's  your  job?" 

"King's  messenger." 
255 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

It  was  not  yet  nine-thirty.  The  anti- 
treating  law  would  not  let  me  give  him  a 
drink,  but  I  led  him  to  where  one  was.  For 
he  had  restored  my  faith.  He  had  replaced 
on  his  pedestal  my  favorite  character  in 
fiction. 

On  returning  to  London  for  the  fourth 
time  since  the  war  began,  but  after  an  ab- 
sence of  months,  one  finds  her  much  nearer 
to  the  field  of  operations.  A  year  ago  her 
citizens  enjoyed  the  confidence  that  comes 
from  living  on  an  island.  Compared  with 
Paris,  where  at  Claye  the  enemy  was  within 
fifteen  miles,  and,  at  the  Forest  of  Mont- 
morency,  within  ten  miles,  London  seemed 
as  far  removed  from  the  front  as  Montreal. 
Since  then,  so  many  of  her  men  have  left  for 
the  front  and  not  returned,  so  many  German 
air-ships  have  visited  her,  and  inhumanly  as- 
sassinated her  children  and  women,  that  she 
seems  a  part  of  it.  A  year  ago  an  officer  en- 
tering a  restaurant  was  conscious  of  his  uni- 
form. To-day,  anywhere  in  London,  a  man 

256 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

out  of  uniform,  or  not  wearing  a  khaki  arm- 
let, is  as  conspicuous  as  a  scarlet  letter-box. 
A  year  ago  the  lamps  had  been  so  darkened 
that  it  was  not  easy  to  find  the  keyhole  to 
your  street  door.  Now  you  are  in  luck  if  you 
find  the  street.  Nor  does  that  mean  you 
have  lingered  long  at  dinner.  For  after  nine- 
thirty  nowhere  in  London  can  you  buy  a 
drink,  not  at  your  hotel,  not  even  at  your 
club.  At  nine-thirty  the  waiter  whisks  your 
drink  off  the  table.  What  happens  to  it 
after  that,  only  the  waiter  knows. 

A  year  ago  the  only  women  in  London  in 
uniform  were  the  nurses.  Now  so  many 
are  in  uniform  that  to  one  visitor  they  pre- 
sented the  most  surprising  change  the  war 
has  brought  to  that  city.  Those  who  live 
in  London,  to  whom  the  change  has  come 
gradually,  are  probably  hardly  aware  how 
significant  it  is.  Few  people,  certainly  few 
men,  guessed  that  so  many  positions  that 
before  the  war  were  open  only  to  men,  could 
be  filled  quite  as  acceptably  by  women.  Only 

257 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

the  comic  papers  guessed  it.  All  that  they 
ever  mocked  at,  all  the  suffragettes  and 
"equal  rights"  women  ever  hoped  for  seems 
to  have  come  true.  Even  women  policemen. 
True,  they  do  not  take  the  place  of  the  real, 
immortal  London  bobby,  neither  do  the 
"special  constables,"  but  if  a  young  girl  is 
out  late  at  night  with  her  young  man  in 
khaki,  she  is  held  up  by  a  policewoman  and 
sent  home.  And  her  young  man  in  khaki 
dare  not  resist. 

In  Paris,  when  the  place  of  a  man  who 
had  been  mobilized  was  taken  by  his  wife, 
sister,  or  daughter,  no  one  was  surprised. 
Frenchwomen  have  for  years  worked  in 
partnership  with  men  to  a  degree  unknown 
in  England.  They  helped  as  bookkeepers, 
shopkeepers;  in  the  restaurant  they  always 
handled  the  money;  in  the  theatres  the  ush- 
ers and  box  openers  were  women;  the  gov- 
ernment tobacco-shops  were  run  by  women. 
That  Frenchwomen  were  capable,  efficient, 
hard  working  was  as  trite  a  saying  as  that 

258 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

the  Japanese  are  a  wonderful  little  people. 
So  when  the  men  went  to  the  front  and  the 
women  carried  on  their  work,  they  were 
only  proving  a  proverb. 

But  in  England  careers  for  women,  out- 
side those  of  governess,  typist,  barmaid,  or 
show  girl,  which  entailed  marrying  a  marquis, 
were  as  few  as  votes.  The  war  has  changed 
that.  It  gave  woman  her  chance,  and  she 
jumped  at  it.  "When  Johnny  Comes  March- 
ing Home  Again"  he  will  find  he  must  look 
for  a  man's  job,  and  that  men's  jobs  no  longer 
are  sinecures.  In  his  absence  women  have 
found  out,  and,  what  is  more  important,  the 
employers  have  found  out  that  to  open  a 
carriage  door  and  hold  an  umbrella  over  a 
customer  is  not  necessarily  a  man's  job. 
The  man  will  have  to  look  for  a  position  his 
sister  cannot  fill,  and,  judging  from  the  pres- 
ent aspect  of  London,  those  positions  are  rap- 
idly disappearing. 

That  in  the  ornamental  jobs,  those  that 
are  relics  of  feudalism  and  snobbery,  women 

259 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

should  supplant  men  is  not  surprising.  To 
wear  gold  lace  and  touch  your  hat  and 
whistle  for  a  taxicab,  if  the  whistle  is  a  me- 
chanical one,  is  no  difficult  task.  It  never 
was  absolutely  necessary  that  a  butler  and 
two  men  should  divide  the  labor  of  serving 
one  cup  of  coffee,  one  lump  of  sugar,  and 
one  cigarette.  A  healthy  young  woman 
might  manage  all  three  tasks  and  not  faint. 
So  the  innovation  of  female  butlers  and  foot- 
men is  not  important.  But  many  of  the  jobs 
now  held  in  London  by  women  are  those 
which  require  strength,  skill,  and  endurance. 
Pulling  on  the  steel  rope  of  an  elevator  and 
closing  the  steel  gates  for  eight  hours  a  day 
require  strength  and  endurance;  and  yet 
in  all  the  big  department  stores  the  lifts  are 
worked  by  girls.  Women  also  drive  the  vans, 
and  dragging  on  the  brake  of  a  brewery- 
wagon  and  curbing  two  draft-horses  is  a 
very  different  matter  from  steering  one  of 
the  cars  that  made  peace  hateful.  Not 
that  there  are  no  women  chauffeurs.  They 

260 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

are  everywhere.  You  see  them  driving  lorries, 
business  cars,  private  cars,  taxicabs,  ambu- 
lances. 

In  men's  caps  and  uniforms  of  green, 
gray,  brown,  or  black,  and  covered  to  the 
waist  with  a  robe,  you  mistake  them  for 
boys.  The  other  day  I  saw  a  motor-truck 
clearing  a  way  for  itself  down  Piccadilly. 
It  was  filled  with  over  two  dozen  Tommies, 
and  driven  recklessly  by  a  girl  in  khaki  of 
not  more  than  eighteen  years.  How  many 
indoor  positions  have  been  taken  over  by 
women  one  can  only  guess;  but  if  they  are 
in  proportion  to  the  out-of-door  jobs  now 
filled  by  women  and  girls,  it  would  seem  as 
though  half  the  work  in  London  was  carried 
forward  by  what  we  once  were  pleased  to 
call  the  weaker  sex.  To  the  visitor  there  ap- 
pear to  be  regiments  of  them.  They  look 
very  businesslike  and  smart  in  their  uni- 
forms, and  whatever  their  work  is  they  are 
intent  upon  it.  As  a  rule,  when  a  woman 
attempts  a  man's  work  she  is  conscious. 

261 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

She  is  more  concerned  with  the  fact  that 
she  is  holding  down  a  man's  job  than  with 
the  job.  Whether  she  is  a  lady  lawyer,  lady 
doctor,  or  lady  journalist,  she  always  is  sur- 
prised to  find  herself  where  she  is.  The  girls 
and  women  you  see  in  uniform  by  the  thou- 
sands in  London  seem  to  have  overcome 
that  weakness.  They  are  performing  a  man's 
work,  and  their  interest  is  centred  in  the 
work,  not  in  the  fact  that  a  woman  has  made 
a  success  of  it.  If,  after  this,  women  in  Eng- 
land want  the  vote,  and  the  men  won't  give 
it  to  them,  the  men  will  have  a  hard  time 
explaining  why. 

During  my  few  days  in  England,  I  found 
that  what  is  going  forward  in  Paris  for  blind 
French  officers  is  being  carried  on  in  London 
at  St.  Dunstan's,  Regent's  Park,  for  blind 
Tommies.  At  this  school  the  classes  are 
much  larger  than  are  those  in  Paris,  the 
pupils  more  numerous,  and  they  live  and 
sleep  on  the  premises.  The  premises  are 
very  beautiful.  They  consist  of  seventeen 

262 


From  a  photograph  by  Brown  Bros. 

"  They  have  women  policemen  now." 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

acres  of  gardens,  lawns,  trees,  a  lake,  and  a 
stream  on  which  you  can  row  and  swim, 
situated  in  Regent's  Park  and  almost  in  the 
heart  of  London.  In  the  days  when  London 
was  farther  away  the  villa  of  St.  Dunstan's 
belonged  to  the  eccentric  Marquis  of  Hert- 
ford, the  wicked  Lord  Steyne  of  Thackeray's 
"Vanity  Fair."  It  was  a  country  estate. 
Now  the  city  has  closed  in  around  it,  but  it 
is  still  a  country  estate,  with  ceilings  by  the 
Brothers  Adam,  portraits  by  Romney,  side- 
boards by  Sheraton,  and  on  the  lawn  sheep. 
To  keep  sheep  in  London  is  as  expensive  as 
to  keep  race-horses,  and  to  own  a  country 
estate  in  London  can  be  afforded  only  by 
Americans.  The  estate  next  to  St.  Dun- 
Stan's  is  owned  by  an  American  lady.  I 
used  to  play  lawn-tennis  there  with  her 
husband.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  horns  of 
the  taxicabs  we  might  have  been  a  hundred 
miles  from  the  nearest  railroad.  Instead, 
we  were  so  close  to  Baker  Street  that  one 
false  step  would  have  landed  us  in  Mme. 

263 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

Tussaud's.  When  the  war  broke  out  the 
husband  ceased  hammering  tennis-balls,  and 
hammered  German  ships  of  war.  He  sank 
several  —  and  is  now  waiting  impatiently 
outside  of  Wilhelmshaven  for  more. 

St.  Dunstan's  also  is  owned  by  an  Amer- 
ican, Otto  Kahn,  the  banker.  In  peace 
times,  in  the  winter  months,  Mr.  Kahn  makes 
it  possible  for  the  people  of  New  York  to 
listen  to  good  music  at  the  Metropolitan 
Opera  House.  When  war  came,  at  his  coun- 
try place  in  London  he  made  it  next  to  pos- 
sible for  the  blind  to  see.  He  gave  the  key 
of  the  estate  to  C.  Arthur  Pearson.  He  also 
gave  him  permission  in  altering  St.  Dun- 
Stan's  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  blind  to  go 
as  far  as  he  liked. 

When  I  first  knew  Arthur  Pearson  he  and 
Lord  Northcliffe  were  making  rival  collec- 
tions of  newspapers  and  magazines.  They 
collected  them  as  other  people  collect  postal 
cards  and  cigar-bands.  Pearson  was  then, 
as  he  is  now,  a  man  of  the  most  remarkable 

264 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

executive  ability,  of  keen  intelligence,  of 
untiring  nervous  energy.  That  was  ten  years 
ago.  He  knew  then  that  he  was  going  blind. 
And  when  the  darkness  came  he  accepted 
the  burden;  not  only  his  own,  but  he  took 
upon  his  shoulders  the  burden  of  all  the 
blind  in  England.  He  organized  the  Na- 
tional Institute  for  those  who  could  not  see. 
He  gave  them  of  his  energy,  which  has  not 
diminished;  he  gave  them  of  his  fortune, 
which,  happily  for  them,  has  not  diminished; 
he  gave  them  his  time,  his  intelligence.  If 
you  ask  what  the  time  of  a  blind  man  is 
worth,  go  to  St.  Dunstan's  and  you  will 
find  out.  You  will  see  a  home  and  school 
for  blind  men,  run  by  a  blind  man.  The 
same  efficiency,  knowledge  of  detail,  in- 
tolerance of  idleness,  the  same  generous  ap- 
preciation of  the  work  of  others,  that  he  put 
into  running  The  Express  and  Standard,  he 
now  exerts  at  St.  Dunstan's.  It  has  Pear- 
son written  all  over  it  just  as  a  mile  away 
there  is  a  building  covered  with  the  name  of 

265 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

Selfridge,  and  a  cathedral  with  the  name  of 
Christopher  Wren.  When  I  visited  him  in 
his  room  at  St.  Dunstan's  he  was  standing 
with  his  back  to  the  open  fire  dictating  to  a 
stenographer.  He  called  to  me  cheerily, 
caught  my  hand,  and  showed  me  where  I 
was  to  sit.  All  the  time  he  was  looking 
straight  at  me  and  firing  questions: 

"When  did  you  leave  Salonika?  How 
many  troops  have  we  landed?  Our  posi- 
tions are  very  strong,  aren't  they?" 

He  told  the  stenographer  she  need  not 
wait,  and  of  an  appointment  he  had  which 
she  was  not  to  forget.  Before  she  reached 
the  door  he  remembered  two  more  things  she 
was  not  to  forget.  The  telephone  rang,  and, 
still  talking,  he  walked  briskly  around  a 
sofa,  avoided  a  table  and  an  armchair,  and 
without  fumbling  picked  up  the  instru- 
ment. What  he  heard  was  apparently  very 
good  news.  He  laughed  delightedly,  saying: 
"  That's  fine !  That's  splendid ! " 

A  secretary  opened  the  door  and  tried  to 
266 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

tell  him  what  he  had  just  learned,  but  was 
cut  short. 

"I  know,"  said  Pearson.  "So-and-so  has 
just  phoned  me.  It's  fine,  isn't  it?" 

He  took  a  small  pad  from  his  pocket, 
made  a  note  on  it,  and  laid  the  memorandum 
beside  the  stenographer's  machine.  Then 
he  wound  his  way  back  to  the  fireplace  and 
offered  a  case  of  cigarettes.  He  held  them 
within  a  few  inches  of  my  hand.  Since  I 
last  had  seen  him  he  had  shaved  his  mus- 
tache and  looked  ten  years  younger  and,  as 
he  exercises  every  morning,  very  fit.  He 
might  have  been  an  officer  of  the  navy  out 
of  uniform.  I  had  been  in  the  room  five 
minutes,  and  only  once,  when  he  wrote  on 
the  pad  and  I  saw  that  as  he  wrote  he  did 
not  look  at  the  pad,  would  I  have  guessed 
that  he  was  blind. 

"What  we  teach  them  here,"  he  said, 
firing  the  words  as  though  from  a  machine- 
gun,  "is  that  blindness  is  not  an  'affliction/ 
We  won't  allow  that  word.  We  teach  them 

267 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

to  be  independent.  Sisters  and  the  mothers 
spoil  them !  Afraid  they'll  bump  their  shins. 
Won't  let  them  move  about.  Always  lead- 
ing them.  That's  bad,  very  bad.  Makes 
them  think  they're  helpless,  no  good,  in- 
valids for  life.  We  teach  'em  to  strike  out 
for  themselves.  That's  the  way  to  put  heart 
into  them.  Make  them  understand  they're 
of  use,  that  they  can  help  themselves,  help 
others,  learn  a  trade,  be  self-supporting. 
We  trained  them  to  row.  Some  of  them 
never  had  had  oars  in  their  hands  except 
on  the  pond  at  Hempstead  Heath  on  a 
bank  holiday.  We  trained  a  crew  that 
swept  the  river." 

It  was  fine  to  see  the  light  in  his  face. 
His  enthusiasm  gave  you  a  thrill.  He  might 
have  been  Guy  Nickalls  telling  how  the 
crew  he  coached  won  at  New  London. 

"They  were  the  best  crews,  too.  Uni- 
versity crews.  Of  course,  our  coxswain  could 
see,  but  the  crew  were  blind.  We've  not 
only  taught  them  to  row,  we've  taught  them 

268 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

to  support  themselves,  taught  them  trades. 
All  men  who  come  here  have  lost  their  eye- 
sight in  battle  in  this  war,  but  already  we 
have  taught  some  of  them  a  trade  and  set 
them  up  in  business.  And  while  the  war 
lasts  business  will  be  good  for  them.  And  it 
must  be  nursed  and  made  to  grow.  So  we 
have  an  'after-care'  committee.  To  care  for 
them  after  they  have  left  us.  To  buy  raw 
material,  to  keep  their  work  up  to  the  mark, 
to  dispose  of  it.  We  need  money  for  those 
men.  For  the  men  who  have  started  life 
again  for  themselves.  Do  you  think  there 
are  people  in  America  who  would  like  to 
help  those  men?" 

I  asked,  in  case  there  were  such  people, 
to  whom  should  they  write. 

"To  me,"  he  said,  "St.  Dunstan's,  Re- 
gent's Park."* 

I  found  the  seventeen  acres  of  St.  Dun- 
stan's so  arranged  that  no  blind  man  could 

*In  New  York,  the  Permanent  Blind  Relief  War  Fund 
for  Soldiers  and  Sailors  of  Great  Britain,  France,  and  Bel- 

269 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

possibly  lose  his  way.  In  the  house,  over 
the  carpets,  were  stretched  strips  of  mat- 
ting. So  long  as  a  man  kept  his  feet  on  mat- 
ting he  knew  he  was  on  the  right  path  to 
the  door.  Outside  the  doors  hand-rails 
guided  him  to  the  workshops,  schoolrooms,  ex- 
ercising-grounds,  and  kitchen-gardens.  Just 
before  he  reached  any  of  these  places  a  brass 
knob  on  the  hand-rail  warned  him  to  go 
slow.  Were  he  walking  on  the  great  stone 
terrace  and  his  foot  scraped  against  a  board 
he  knew  he  was  within  a  yard  of  a  flight  of 
steps.  Wherever  you  went  you  found  men 
at  work,  learning  a  trade,  or,  having  learned 
one,  intent  in  the  joy  of  creating  something. 
To  help  them  there  are  nearly  sixty  ladies, 
who  have  mastered  the  Braille  system  and 
come  daily  to  teach  it.  There  are  many 
other  volunteers,  who  take  the  men  on  walks 

gium  is  working  in  close  association  with  Mr.  Pearson. 
With  him  on  the  committee,  are  Robert  Bacon,  Elihu  Root, 
Myron  T.  Herrick,  Whitney  Warren,  Lady  Arthur  Paget, 
and  George  Alexander  Kessler.  The  address  of  the  fund  is 
590  Fifth  Avenue. 

270 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

around  Regent's  Park  and  who  talk  and  read 
to  them.  Everywhere  was  activity.  Every- 
where some  one  was  helping  some  one:  the 
blind  teaching  the  blind;  those  who  had 
been  a  week  at  St.  Dunstan's  doing  the 
honors  to  those  just  arrived.  The  place 
spoke  only  of  hard  work,  mutual  help,  and 
cheerfulness.  When  first  you  arrived  you 
thought  you  had  over  the  others  a  certain 
advantage,  but  when  you  saw  the  work  the 
blind  men  were  turning  out,  which  they  could 
not  see,  and  which  you  knew  with  both  your 
eyes  you  never  could  have  turned  out,  you 
felt  apologetic.  There  were  cabinets,  for 
instance,  measured  to  the  twentieth  of  an 
inch,  and  men  who  were  studying  to  be 
masseurs  who,  only  by  touch,  could  dis- 
tinguish all  the  bones  in  the  body.  There 
was  Miss  Woods,  a  blind  stenographer.  I 
dictated  a  sentence  to  her,  and  as  fast  as  I 
spoke  she  took  it  down  on  a  machine  in 
the  Braille  alphabet.  It  appeared  in  raised 
figures  on  a  strip  of  paper  like  those  that 

271 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

carry  stock  quotations.  Then,  reading  the 
sentence  with  her  fingers,  she  pounded  it 
on  an  ordinary  typewriter.  Her  work  was 
faultless. 

What  impressed  you  was  the  number  of 
the  workers  who,  over  their  task,  sang  or 
whistled.  None  of  them  paid  any  attention 
to  what  the  others  were  whistling.  Each 
acted  as  though  he  were  shut  off  in  a  world 
of  his  own.  The  spirits  of  the  Tommies  were 
unquenchable. 

Thorpe  Five  was  one  of  those  privates 
who  are  worth  more  to  a  company  than  the 
sergeant-major.  He  was  a  comedian.  He 
looked  like  John  Bunny,  and  when  he  laughed 
he  shook  all  over,  and  you  had  to  laugh  with 
him,  even  though  you  were  conscious  that 
Thorpe  Five  had  no  eyes  and  no  hands. 
But  was  he  conscious  of  that?  Apparently 
not.  Was  he  down-hearted?  No!  Some 
one  snatched  his  cigarette;  and  with  the 
stumps  of  his  arms  he  promptly  beat  two 
innocent  comrades  over  the  head.  When 

272 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

the  lady  guide  interfered  and  admitted  it 
was  she  who  had  robbed  him,  Thorpe  Five 
roared  in  delight. 

"I  bashed  'em!"  he  cried.  "Her  took 
it,  but  I  bashed  the  two  of  'em!" 

A  private  of  the  Munsters  was  weaving 
a  net,  and,  as  though  he  were  quite  alone, 
singing,  in  a  fine  barytone,  "Tipperary." 
If  you  want  to  hear  real  close  harmony,  you 
must  listen  to  Southern  darkeys;  and  if  you 
want  to  get  the  sweetness  and  melancholy 
out  of  an  Irish  chant,  an  Irishman  must 
sing  it.  I  thought  I  had  heard  "Tipperary" 
before  several  times,  and  that  it  was  a  march. 
I  found  I  had  not  heard  it  before,  and  that 
it  is  not  a  march,  but  a  lament  and  a  love- 
song.  The  soldier  did  not  know  we  were 
listening,  and  while  his  fingers  wove  the 
meshes  of  the  net,  his  voice  rose  in  tones  of 
the  most  moving  sweetness.  He  did  not 
know  that  he  was  facing  a  window,  he  did 
not  know  that  he  was  staring  straight  out 
upon  the  city  of  London.  But  we  knew,  and 

273 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

when  in  his  rare  barytone  and  rare  brogue 
he  whispered  rather  than  sang  the  lines: 

"  Good-by,  Piccadilly— 

Farewell,  Leicester  Square, 
It's  a  long,  long  way  to  Tipperary  " 

—  all  of  his  unseen  audience  hastily  fled. 

There  was  also  Private  Watts,  who  was 
mending  shoes.  When  the  week  before  Lord 
Kitchener  visited  St.  Dunstan's,  Watts  had 
joked  with  him.  I  congratulated  him  on 
his  courage. 

"What  was  your  joke?"  I  inquired. 

"He  asked  me  when  I  was  a  prisoner  with 
the  Germans  how  they  fed  me,  and  I  said: 
'Oh,  they  gave  me  five  beefsteaks  a  day.' ' 

"That  was  a  good  joke/'  I  said.  "Did 
Kitchener  think  so?" 

The  man  had  been  laughing,  pleased  and 
proud.  Now  the  blank  eyes  turned  wist- 
fully to  my  companion. 

"Did  his  lordship  smile?"  he  asked. 

Those  blind  French  officers  at  the  Crillon 
274 


LONDON,  A  YEAR  LATER 

in  Paris  and  these  English  Tommies  are 
teaching  a  great  lesson.  They  are  teaching 
men  who  are  whining  over  the  loss  of  money, 
health,  or  a  job,  to  be  ashamed.  It  is  not 
we  who  are  helping  them,  but  they  who  are 
helping  us.  They  are  showing  us  how  to 
face  disaster  and  setting  an  example  of  real 
courage.  Those  who  do  not  profit  by  it  are 
more  blind  than  they. 

THE  END. 


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